Georgetown University
Yan-ho Lai (Eric) is the Hong Kong Law Fellow of the Georgetown Center for Asian Law, where he observes and analyses the development of the rule of law and judicial independence in the context of Mainland-Hong Kong relations. He is currently a PhD Candidate in Law at SOAS University of London, expecting to graduate in May 2022. His doctoral research focuses on the interactions between the state, legal professionals and civil society in authoritarian regimes; he also studies law and politics, social movement, contentious politics and electoral integrity in Hong Kong and China. He received his master’s degree in Political Sociology from London School of Economics and Political Science as a Chevening Scholar in 2013.
Lai was a lecturer in political science at several universities in Hong Kong. From 2018 to 2019, he was a visiting fellow at the Center of Comparative and Public Law at the University of Hong Kong, where he conducted research on the development of state-lawyer relations and cause lawyering in Hong Kong. Lai is also a human rights defender who served in several NGOs alongside social movement organisations in Hong Kong. His latest works include Unravelling Authoritarian Rule of Law in Hong Kong: From Post-Umbrella Resistance to the Anti-Extradition Bill Protests (Taiwan: Showwe Information 2021), and “Solidarity and Implications of a Leaderless Movement in Hong Kong: Its Strengths and Limitations” (Communist and Post-communist Studies 2020, co-authored with Ming Sing).
Personal Website: ericyanholai.com
Asian Civil Society Research Network 