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PROF. BRYAN H. DRUZIN

Associate Professor

Tel

Fax

Email

Office

(852) 3943 1044

(852) 2994 2505

bryandruzin@cuhk.edu.hk

Room 526
Faculty of Law
5/F, Lee Shau Kee Building
The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Sha Tin, NT, Hong Kong SAR

Bryan Druzin is Associate Professor of Law and Legal Theory at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. His research focuses on institutional theory, international law, and global governance. He has held teaching positions at King’s College London, Brunel University London, and as a Visiting Professor at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law. He holds a B.A., LL.B., and LL.M. from the University of British Columbia and a PhD in Law from King’s College London. He is the Head of the Faculty Student Disciplinary Committee, former Director of the Faculty’s LLM Programmes, and is a Non-resident Senior Fellow at the Centre for International Law, Conflict and Crisis (CILG) at the University of Copenhagen.

Professor Druzin has published widely in journals at leading U.S. law schools, such as Harvard, Cornell, and Columbia, in noted peer-reviewed journals, and has contributed to edited volumes from Oxford University Press and Cambridge University Press. His work explores how institutions and systems of governance emerge, persist, and collapse—particularly where centralized authority is weak or absent. He has written on a range of topics in this area, from the self-ordering potential of international law to the evolution of social norms, rights, and inequality. His current research examines the impact of geopolitical fragmentation on international law. His work has also recently extended to AI governance, which poses the same foundational question: how to establish effective governance where centralized authority is weak.

He is the recipient of the CU Research Excellence Award, recognizing his innovative contributions to the study of governance in anarchic systems, and has contributed to media outlets such as the CBC National News, CNN, The Guardian, the National Post, and the South China Morning Post.

AREAS OF INTEREST

  • Institutional Theory
  • Law and Norms
  • International Relations Theory
  • AI Governance

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

Google Scholar Profile: here

Journal Articles

Published Conference Papers

Book Chapters

Book Reviews

PRESENTATIONS AND CONFERENCES

  • Presenter, “The Option to Exit: The Impact of Institutional Fragmentation on International Legal Regimes,” Eleventh WINIR Conference: Private & Public Institutions for Good Governance, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy (July 2026).
  • Invited Participant, Law-Following AI Workshop, Institute for Law & AI (LawAI) and the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence (CFI), Christ’s College, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK (June 2026).
  • Presenter, “The Focal-Point Power of UNIDROIT,” Asian Law and Economics Association (AsLEA) 2026 Annual Conference, Singapore Management University, Yong Pung How School of Law, Singapore (June 2026).
  • Presenter, “Institutional Fragmentation and the Future of International Law in Asia,” 23rd Asian Law Institute Conference (ASLI), Faculty of Law, Universitas Indonesia, Jakarta, Indonesia (June 2026).
  • Invited Panelist, “Beyond Human Control: AI Safety and a Governance-First Model,” Responsible AI in Action: Cross-Disciplinary Strategies for Ethics, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong (December 2025).
  • Co-organizer and speaker, “Legal Responses to the Existential Threat Posed by Artificial Intelligence,” Centre for Legal Innovation and Digital Society (CLINDS), The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong (September 2025).
  • Invited Participant, Law-Following AI Workshop, Institute for Law & AI (LawAI) and the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence (CFI), Christ’s College, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK (August 2025).
  • Invited Panelist, “Global Perspectives on AI Governance,” Penn Wharton China Center & Wharton Accountable AI Lab, Peking University, Beijing, China (May 2025).
  • Presenter, “Taking Intergenerational Rights Seriously,” Distributive Justice in International Law Joint Conference, Cambridge Centre for Environment, Energy and Natural Resource Governance (CEENRG) and the Centre for International and Strategic Studies (CISS), LUISS Guido Carli University, Rome, Italy (October 2024).
  • Invited Chair, European China Law Studies Association (ECLS) Annual Conference, Hong Kong (September 2024).
  • Presenter, “Exporting Legal Standards along the Belt and Road,” Asian Society of International Law (AsianSIL) Intersessional Conference, Almaty, Kazakhstan (May 2024).
  • Invited Speaker, “UNCITRAL and the Spontaneous Harmonization of Legal Standards,” 10th Anniversary UNCITRAL RCAP-UM Joint Conference, Macau, China (December 2023).
  • Presenter, “Law’s War on Social Norms: Examining the Limits of Law as an Instrument of Normative Change,” Asian Law and Economics Association (AsLEA) Annual Conference, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan (August 2023).
  • Invited Speaker, “A World unraveling: Can Multilateral Environmental Governance be sustained?” Liberalism and Ecology in the Anthropocene, European Society of International Law (ESIL) Interest Group on International Legal Theory and Philosophy, University of Messina, Messina, Italy (June 2022).
  • Presenter, “Lit Matches and Dry Prairie Fields: The Internet as a Source for Abrupt Normative Change,” Canadian Law & Economics Conference (CLEA), University of Toronto Faculty of Law, Toronto, Canada (September 2019).
  • Presenter, “Digital Lemmings: Internet Control and Herd Behavior,” 15th Annual Meeting of the Asian Law and Economics Association (AsLEA), Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand (June 2019).
  • Invited Speaker, “Online Communication, Cyber-speech Cascades, and Sudden Changes in Mass Behavior,” University of Copenhagen, Faculty of Law, Copenhagen, Denmark (June 2019).
  • Invited Speaker, “Does the Return of Great-Power Rivalry mean the end of the Liberal International Order?” International Law in Times of Trade Wars and Global Environmental Problems, European Society of International Law (ESIL) Interest Group on International Environmental Law, Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia (May 2019).
  • Presenter, “The Possibility of Using Network Effects to Strengthen International Environmental Governance,” Society for Environmental Law and Economics (SELE) Meeting, Diego Portales University, Santiago, Chile (March 2019).
  • Invited Speaker, “Sustaining Multilateral Environmental Agreements in a Period of Shifting Geopolitical Power,” 6th WOC Sustainable Ocean Summit (SOS), Hong Kong (November 2018).
  • Presenter, “The Coming Collapse of International Economic Integration,” Joint North American Conference on International Economic Law, American Society of International Law (ASIL), the Canadian Council on International Law (CCIL), and the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI), McGill University Faculty of Law, Montreal, Canada (September 2018).
  • Presenter, “Networks and Institutional Power,” 14th Annual Meeting of the Asian Law and Economics Association (AsLEA), Singapore Academy of Law, Singapore (August 2018).
  • Invited Panelist, “Corporate Responsibility and the Limits of Soft Law,” Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics (SASE) Annual Conference, Kyoto, Japan (June 2018).
  • Presenter, “Strengthening Global Governance in an Era of International Disorder,” European Society of International Law (ESIL) Research Forum, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel (February 2018).
  • Invited Speaker, “Controlling Public Opinion in the Digital Age,” Law and the Digital Age, Qatar University College of Law, Doha, Qatar (February 2018).
  • Invited Speaker, “Escaping Institutional Lock-in,” The Future of Asian Trade Deals and IP, Singapore Management University, Singapore (December 2017).
  • Presenter, “The Rise of Soft Law,” 2nd Annual Conference of the French Association of Law and Economics (AFED), Aix-Marseille University, Marseille, France (November 2017).
  • Presenter, “Toward a Network Model of Soft Law,” 3rd European Conference on Social Networks (EUSN), Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz, Germany (September 2017).
  • Presenter, “Institutional Lock-In within the Field of Investment Arbitration,” Biennial Conference of the Asian Society of International Law (AsianSIL), Seoul, Korea (August 2017).
  • Presenter, “The US has abandoned the Paris Climate Agreement—is its Collapse now inevitable?” 13th Annual Meeting of the Asian Law and Economics Association (AsLEA), Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam (June 2017).
  • Presenter, “Why does Soft Law have Power?” 27th Annual Meeting of the American Law and Economics Association (ALEA), Yale Law School, New Haven, USA (May 2017).
  • Presenter, “Preventing the Tragedy of the Commons in International Environmental Governance,” Society for Environmental Law and Economics (SELE) Meeting, Worcester College, University of Oxford, UK (May 2017).
  • Presenter, “Shouldering the Burden of Modernity: The Internet as a Source for Abrupt Normative Change,” 14th Asian Law Institute Conference (ASLI), Manila, Philippines (May 2017).
  • Invited Panelist, “Towards a Greater Practice of Investment Arbitration in Asia-Pacific,” 14th Asian Law Institute Conference (ASLI), Manila, Philippines (May 2017).
  • Presenter, “A Theory of Speech Cascades,” 111th Association of American Law Schools (AALS) Annual Meeting, San Francisco, USA (January 2017).
  • Presenter, “Legal Ambiguity and the Limits of Censorship,” 11th Annual General Conference of the European China Law Studies Association (ECLS), University of Roma TRE, Rome, Italy (September 2016).
  • Invited Chair, Asia WTO Research Network (AWRN) Annual Conference, Hong Kong (May 2016).
  • Keynote Speaker, “Why Utilitarianism is not a Moral Theory,” World Lumen Congress 2016, Iasi, Romania (April 2016).
  • Invited Presenter, “Soft Law as Spontaneous Order,” HKU-NUS Conference 2016, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong (February 2016).
  • Invited Presenter, “Sustainable Development in China: An Opportunity for Creative Environmental Governance,” Consumer Policy in China: New Trends and Challenges, University of Macau, Macau, China (December 2015).
  • Presenter, “Understanding the Force of Soft Law,” Biennial Conference of the Asian Society of International Law (AsianSIL), Bangkok, Thailand (November 2015).
  • Invited Presenter, “The Fragility of the Norms that Underpin Environmental Cooperation,” International Conference on Underwater Cultural Heritage, South China Sea Institute of Xiamen University, Xiamen, China (November 2015).
  • Presenter, “Why Soft Law has Influence and How to Harness its Power,” American Society of International Law (ASIL) Research Forum, Washington DC, USA (October 2015).
  • Participant, LEC Workshop for Law Professors on Austrian Law & Economics, George Mason University, Arlington, USA (October 2015).
  • Invited Presenter, “The Normative Future of Sustainable Development,” Sustainable Development and International Law, Consulate General of France in Hong Kong and Macau, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong (October 2015).
  • Invited Presenter, “Why the Nation-State does not make Sense,” New Approaches in Social and Humanistic Sciences, Academy of Sciences of Moldova, Chisinau, Moldova (September 2015).
  • Presenter, “Our Castles in the Sky: Why the Nation State is Illegitimate,” 27th World Congress of the International Society for the Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy, Georgetown University, Washington DC, USA (August 2015).
  • Participant, LEC Thirty-First Economics Institute for Law Professors, George Mason University, Virginia, USA (July 2015).
  • Invited Participant, Expert Roundtable on International Investment Law and Sustainable Development, Paris Center for Law and Economics, University of Paris II (Panthéon-Assas), Paris, France (July 2015).
  • Invited Presenter, “From Chaos to Cooperation: A Proposal to Strengthen Treaty Compliance,” UK-China Comparative Public Law Symposium, Shandong University, Jinan, China (April 2015).
  • Invited Presenter, “The Tragedy in the Tragedy of the Commons,” Managing the Globalization of Water Services in a World Affected by Climate Change, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong (March 2015).
  • Invited Chair, European China Law Studies Association (ECLS) Annual Conference, Hong Kong (November 2014).
  • Presenter, “The Enhancement of International Trade through Spontaneous Harmonization,” UNCITRAL Asia-Pacific Fall Conference, Macau, China (October 2014).
  • Invited Presenter, “The New Lex Maritima and the Possibility of Stateless Legal Order,” The Continued Development of Shipping Law, Centre for Commercial Law Studies, in London, Queen Mary University London, UK (July 2014).
  • Invited Presenter, “Solving the Tragedy of the Commons in Global Water Conservation,” Globalization of Water Services: International Rules and Challenges, Maastricht University, Brussels, Belgium (June 2014).
  • Presenter, “Explaining the Emergence of a Unified Commercial Legal Order,” Asian Conference on Politics, Economy and Law (ACPEL), Osaka, Japan (November 2013).
  • Presenter, “Our New Leash on Speech,” Joint Workshop on Technology, Energy and International Economic Law, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong (September 2012).
  • Presenter, “A Semiotic Approach to Law and Norms,” 10th International Roundtable for the Semiotics of Law, Getulio Vargas Foundation (FGV), Rio De Janeiro, Brazil (November 2011).
  • Presenter, “Towards a Postmodern Conception of Law,” 13th Annual Interdisciplinary Legal Studies Graduate Students Conference, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada (May 2008).

AWARDS

  • CU Research Excellence Award 2015
  • University of British Columbia Graduate Scholarship Award 2007
  • Hugh M Brock Scholarship Award 2002

OCCASIONAL REVIEWER

  • Cambridge University Press
  • Law & Social Inquiry
  • International Journal for the Semiotics of Law
  • Hart Publishing 
  • Rationality and Society
  • Social Theory and Practice