Chin Leng Lim is the Choh-Ming Li Professor of Law and practises with a leading London commercial set. He is a Visiting Professor at King’s College London and an Honorary Senior Fellow of the British Institute of International & Comparative Law. He joined the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 2017 following a decade as Professor at Hong Kong University where he had served as a member of HKU’s Senate and Court.

Books include:

• The Cambridge Companion to International Arbitration, ed. (Cambridge, forthcoming);
• Lim, Ho & Paparinskis on International Investment Law and Arbitration, with a Foreword by Emmanuel Gaillard (Cambridge, 2018);
• Alternative Visions of the International Law on Foreign Investment (Cambridge, 2016), ed.;
• International Economic Law after the Global Crisis, with Mercurio eds. (Cambridge, 2015);
• The Trans-Pacific Partnership (Cambridge, 2012) with Elms and Low eds.; and the early work, written while a degree candidate,
• The Paradox of Consensualism in International Law, with a Foreword by Martti Koskenniemi (Kluwer, 1998), with Elias.

The following is a selection of contemporary published papers, some as book chapters:

• “Taming Leviathan as Merchant”, World Trade Review, with Matsushita (forthcoming)
• “The Function of the Transnational Chinese Contract”, (2019) 20 Jo W Investment & Trade 313
• “Finding a Workable Balance”, Benedict Kingsbury et al (eds.), Contested Megaregulation (Oxford, 2019);
• “Fragrant Harbour and Oyster Mirror”, 2015-2016 Yrbk Int’l Investment Law & Pol 375 (Oxford, 2018);
• “Worldwide Litigation over Foreign Sovereign Assets”, (2016) 10 DRI 145;
• “The Strange Vitality of Custom in the International Protection of Property and Contracts”, Curtis Bradley (ed.), Custom’s Future (Cambridge, 2016);
• “Injuncting Foreign Sovereigns in Aid of Arbitration”, (2014) 130 LQR 193;
• “Foreign Sovereign Counterparties to Hong Kong Contracts”, (2014) 9 Capital Markets LJ 157;
• A trilogy of notes culminating in “Beijing’s ‘Congo’ Interpretation, Commercial Implications”, (2012) 128 LQR 6;
• “You Don’t Miss Your Water ’Til Your River Runs Dry”, (2012) 18 Stanford Jo L Bus & Fin 72 (with Senduk);
• “The Conventional Morality of Trade”, in Chios Carmody et al (eds.), Global Justice and International Economic Law (Cambridge, 2012);
• “East Asia’s Engagement with Cosmopolitan Ideals”, (2011) 56 McGill LJ 821;
• “China and the Doha Development Agenda”, (2010) 44 Jo World Trade 1309 (with Wang); and
• “Saving the WTO from the Risk of Irrelevance”, (2008) 11 Jo Int’l Econ L 899 (with Gao).

Scribblings on Hong Kong’s treaty and constitutional arrangements include:

• Chan and Lim on the Law of the Hong Kong Constitution, with specialist contributors, 2d. ed. (Sweet & Maxwell, 2015), 1st ed. (Sweet & Maxwell, 2012), Forewords by The Hon. Mr. Justice Ma C.J. and The Hon. Mr. Andrew Li;
• “The Sino-British Treaty and the Hong Kong Booksellers Affair”, 132 (2016) LQR 552; and
• “Britain’s ‘Treaty Rights’ in Hong Kong”, (2015) 131 LQR 348.

For papers made publicly available, please see: https://works.bepress.com/chin_lim/.

Keynote speeches and invited lectures include those delivered at Tillar House in D.C., the Harvard International Law Journal’s Annual Symposium, the Lakshman Kadirgamar Institute, the 21st Singapore Law Review Lecture and the CMS Hasche Sigle International Law Lecture. Conferences and international workshops organised include an inaugural conference held in Singapore of the Asian Society of International Law in 2007 (NUS grant supported) and a series of Hong Kong conferences:

• “Future of the International Economic Order” in 2011 with Arner and Mercurio (HKUSRT grant supported);
• “Present at the Beginning”, on the Trans-Pacific Partnership treaty negotiations in 2011 with Elms;
• “China’s Identity in International Law” in 2016 with Carty (Research Grants Council, GRF No. 741012, HKD 1.95 million, Principal Investigator); and
• “International Dispute Resolution: Reflections and Redirections”, with Chiann Bao, in 2019, celebrating the launch of BIICL’s establishment of its overseas presence in Hong Kong.

His writings have been cited by appellate courts, bar associations, in a legislative inquiry and in Royal Commission and International Law Commission reports. In recent years he has spoken at the invitation of China’s MOFCOM, the EU Office to HK, UKFCO, Australia’s DFAT, Malaysia’s Central Bank, international bodies (the WTO, UNESCAP, APEC, ADB, PECC, OMFIF), universities (Penn, NYU, Tokyo, Geneva, Peking, Melbourne, Duke, Harvard and Tufts among them) and to professional legal audiences at events organised by ASIL, the NY State Bar Association, IBA, KLRCA, HKIAC, HKIArb, GAR and AsiaLaw. He is reported in the Economist, Vox, the Wall Street Journal, the Chicago Tribune and the Guardian in the UK, by Forbes, CNN, Reuters, what then was the International Herald Tribune and by the Hong Kong, Beijing and regional press and media.

Lim served three terms on a trade and industry department committee which advises the Hong Kong SAR’s Commerce Secretary. Before coming to Hong Kong, he taught at the National University of Singapore to which he returned in 2015 as the inaugural Lionel A. Sheridan Visiting Professor. He had taught, previously, in England and Wales before a hiatus from academic life – then at Queen Mary & Westfield College, London – followed during which he worked at Geneva UN Headquarters (UNCC/Security Council ad hoc committee no. 26), later as government international law counsel for the Republic of Singapore.

Called to the Middle Temple and the Singapore Bar he earned bachelor’s degrees from Buckingham and Oxford (Univ. Coll.), a master’s from the Harvard Law School as Kathryn Aguirre Worth Memorial Scholar, and a doctorate from Nottingham where he had first taught while holding the Law Studentship under the supervision of Professor D.J. Harris C.M.G. and the late Rev. Professor Hilaire McCoubrey.

COURSES

• Transnational Legal Problems (Graduates Only – JD/LLM)
• Law & Practice of Investment Arbitration (Graduates Only – JD/LLM)
• Transnational Law & Business (Undergraduates Only)

RESEARCH INTERESTS

• International and Comparative Law, especially commercial and investment arbitration, the commercial conflict of laws and international economic treaties
• Hong Kong’s treaty and constitutional arrangements