Dr Humphrey Ko

Profile

I am a Visiting Research Fellow in East Asian Studies at the University of Leeds. I am also an Associate in the University of Oxford China Centre and Adjunct Associate Professor in the Faculty of Law at the University of Hong Kong. I taught Chinese studies in the Department of East Asian Studies at the University of Leeds and Chinese history in the Institute for Chinese Studies at the University of Oxford. I was a Research Associate of the National Institute of Chinese Studies at the White Rose East Asia Centre.

Research interests

I am interested in the historical understanding of constitutional systems and their stability. These include the interrelationships between constitutional failure, constitutional construction, pre-modern regulations for corporate entities and post-modern state regulations of energy corporations, in particular when these relationships are related to China. I am interested in how the emerging modern Chinese state reacted to commercial corporate entities and the history of the modern regulation of corporate entities in the late imperial Qing dynasty of China. I also participated in an investigation of 19th century Western international law’s systemic impact on the Qing Empire between 1842 and 1911.

Published Book

The Making of the Modern Chinese State: Cement, Legal Personality and Industry. Palgrave Macmillan, 2016.

Qualifications

• DPhil Oxford
• MA Leeds
• LLB Hong Kong
• BEng Imperial

Research groups and institutes

• East Asian Studies