Professor Peter C.H. CHAN is an Associate Professor at the City University of Hong Kong Law School. Professor Chan is a leading scholar in procedural law. He dissects procedural law issues (in particular, civil procedure) and topics relating to court systems and dispute resolution using empirical methods, frequently using China and its judicial reform as a case study. His work has appeared (or forthcoming) in reputable law journals and area studies periodicals, such as The China Quarterly, Modern China, UC Law Journal (formerly Hastings Law Journal), Tulane Law Review, University of Pennsylvania Journal of International Law, University of Pennsylvania Asian Law Review, China: An International Journal, Judicature and Washington International Law Journal.

Professor Chan is a member of the International Association of Procedural Law, a fellow of the European Law Institute, an associate member of the International Academy of Comparative Law, an Invited Fellow of the Maastricht European Private Law Institute, the Associate Director of the Centre for Chinese and Comparative Law (CCCL) at City University of Hong Kong, a Core Member of the Centre for Public Affairs and Law at City University of Hong Kong and a member of the Research School Ius Commune. Professor Chan was a Visiting Professor (in 2013) at the Law Faculty, Kazan (Volga Region) Federal University.

Professor Chan’s research has been cited by the New York Times, South China Morning Post and RT.

AREAS OF RESEARCH

Procedural Law; Court Systems; Dispute Resolution; Chinese and Comparative Law

Competitive Research Grants

• 2025/26, Principal Investigator, General Research Fund (GRF), “From Strike-Hard Policy to Soft Control of Crime: An Empirical Assessment of Lenient Governance of Misdemeanours in China (Focusing on the Offence of Dangerous Driving)” HK $490,000, Hong Kong Research Grant Council, Jan 2026 – December 2028 (Project No. CityU 11601225).
• 2024/25, Principal Investigator, General Research Fund (GRF), “Judicial Expansion of Criminality for Stability: State Control of Rural Resistance to Land Acquisition in China” HK $490,000, Hong Kong Research Grant Council, Jan 2025 – December 2027 (Project No. CityU 11603024).
• 2023/24, Principal Investigator, General Research Fund (GRF), “Has the Plea Leniency Procedure Reshaped China’s Criminal Justice System? – An Empirical Enquiry” HK $490,000, Hong Kong Research Grant Council, Jan 2024 – December 2026 (Project No. CityU 11602523).
• 2022/23, Principal Investigator, An Empirical Assessment of Legal Mobilization by Criminal Defence Weiquan Lawyers in China (GRF), Hong Kong Research Grant Council (RGC), Amount: HKD $478,700, Jan 2022 – December 2024, (Project No. CityU 11604221).
• 2019/21, Principal Investigator, Protecting Employees from Unfair Dismissal in Chinese Courts: An Empirical Study on Serious Breach Dismissal Cases (GRF), Hong Kong Research Grant Council (RGC), Amount: HKD 424,000, Jan 2020 – December 2022, (Project No. CityU 11602719).
• 2017/18, Principal Investigator, Gender Inequality in Chinese Courts: the Case of Married-Out Women and Their Rural Land Rights, Early Career Scheme (ECS), Hong Kong Research Grant Council (RGC), Amount: HKD 458,000, Jan 2018 – Dec 2019, (Project No. CityU 21606517).
• 2010/2011, Co-Investigator, The Role of the Judge and the Parties in Civil Litigation: Towards an Efficient Procedure under the Rule of Law in China and the EU, EU-China Research Grant, China-EU School of Law at the China University of Political Science and Law (CESL), Amount: EUR 63,000, 2011-2012, Peter C.H. Chan (Co-I) [C.H. van Rhee (PI)].

Publication

SSRN page: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=1769895

ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Peter-Chan-30

Publications

• A. MONOGRAPHS

  Mediation in Contemporary Chinese Civil Justice: A Proceduralist Diachronic Perspective. Leiden & Boston: Brill Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 328 pages. Aug 2017.

  Reviewed by: Masood Ahmed (University of Leicester), in International Journal of Procedural Law II(01), 2021.

  Reviewed by: Mohamed Paleker (University of Cape Town), in Asia Pacific Law Review 29(1), 215-219, 2021.

• B. EDITED BOOKS

  Peter C.H. Chan and C.H. (Remco) van Rhee, Civil Case Management in the Twenty-First Century: Court Structures Still Matter. Singapore: Springer, 2021.

• C. JOURNAL ARTICLES

  • Kwai Ng and Peter C.H. Chan*, “The Afterlife of Problem Judgments: Case Review, Discipline, and Judicial Accountability in China”, The China Quarterly, forthcoming 2026.
  • Peter C.H. Chan and Duan Haojin*, “Are There Gender Disparities in Chinese Legal Education? - An Empirical Enquiry”, Penn State Journal of Law & International Affairs, forthcoming 2026.
  • Peter C.H. Chan and Shen Guotong*, “Court Personnel Management Reforms in China: Have They Enhanced Judicial Professionalism?”, Modern China, forthcoming 2025.
  • Shen Guotong and Peter C.H. Chan*, “The Party’s Court or the Court for the Parties: An Empirical Assessment of the Fifth Judicial Reform in China”, University of Pennsylvania Asian Law Review, forthcoming 2025.
  • Wu Wanqiang, Peter C.H. Chan, and Lin Xifen*, “Urban Pollution Governance, Prosecutor-led Environmental Public Interest Litigation, and Regional Environmental Disparities in China: Evidence from 282 Cities”, China: An International Journal 22(4), 73–95, 2024.
  • Peter C.H. Chan and Wu Wanqiang*, “From ‘Line Appraisal’ to ‘Case-Process Ratio’: Will the New Case Quality Assessment System Facilitate the Changing Role of the Chinese Prosecutor?”, Hong Kong Law Journal 54(1), 205-231, 2024.
  • “Old Wine in a New Bottle? – An Empirical Evaluation of the Judicial Reforms in China in the 2010s”, UC Law SF International Law Review (formerly Hastings International and Comparative Law Review) 42(2), 87-128, 2024.
  • “Does Black-Letter Law Matter in Labor Rights Protection in China? - A Tale of Two Cities”, Washington International Law Journal 33(2), 345-388, 2024.
  • “Judicial Reform in China: What Do Judges Think?”, International Journal of Procedural Law 13(2), 312-330, 2023.
  • “The Regulation of Dismissal in China: Diverging Standards of Serious Breach Dismissal and the Need for Reform”, King’s Law Journal 33(2), 208-227, 2022.
  • Hao Jiang and Peter C.H. Chan, “The Rule Against Recovery of Pure Economic Loss in China: A Misconceived Doctrine”, Tulane Law Review 96, 261-292, 2022.
  • “Are Chinese Courts Pro-Labor or Pro-Employer?”, University of Pennsylvania Journal of International Law 43(2), 281-371, 2022.
  • “Balancing the Duties of the Court and the Parties in Promoting Settlement: Can Mainland China and Hong Kong Borrow from the Model European Rules of Civil Procedure?”, International Journal of Procedural Law II(01), 41-63, 2021.
  • Peter C.H. Chan and Huina Xiao, “A Typology of Judicial Liability for Error in Chinese Courts,” Hong Kong Law Journal 51(1), 309-337, 2021.
  • Kwai Ng and Peter C.H. Chan, “‘What Gets Measured Gets Done’: Metric Fixation and China’s Experiment of Quantified Judging,” Asian Journal of Law and Society, 1-27, 2021.
  • Peter C.H. Chan and Huina Xiao, “Weak Criminalization of Domestic Violence in China: Two Key Weaknesses,” Journal of Comparative Law 15(2), 88-111, 2020.
  • “Do the ‘Haves’ Come Out Ahead in Chinese Grassroots Courts? – Rural Land Disputes Between Married-Out Women and Village Collectives,” Hastings Law Journal 71(1), 1-78, 2019 (Lead Article).
  • “Framing the Structure of the Court System in the Perspective of Case Management,” Peking University Law Journal 6(1), 55-79, 2018.
  • Peter C.H. Chan and Viviana Ponce de León, “LA BÚSQUEDA DE LA DEMOCRACIA EN HONG KONG: ¿UN CASO DE REALPOLITIK O UN CONFLICTO DE DOCTRINA CONSTITUCIONAL?”, Estudios Constitucionales 16(2), 403-448, 2018 (in Spanish).
  • Peter C.H. Chan and Ubaid Rehman, “Interim Relief: National Report for Hong Kong (China),” Flinders Law Journal 20(1), 125-145, 2018.
  • “Dispute Resolution under the Belt and Road Initiative: Constructing an Effective Mediation Regime in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Bay Area,” Asian Dispute Review, 125-130, July 2018.
  • “Civil Mediation in Imperial, Republican and Modern-day China,” The Legal History Review 85, 577-602, 2017.
  • “China’s Grand Mediation Strategy for Social Stability: A Study on Out-of-Court Mediation Procedures,” Revista de Processo Comparado 6(3), 81-111, 2017.
  • “A Distorted Mediation Landscape: Judicial Mediation in the Chinese Civil Courts,” TMD [Dutch-Flemish Journal for Mediation and Conflict Management] 20(3), 6-18, 2016.
  • “An Uphill Battle: How China’s Obsession with Social Stability is Blocking Judicial Reform,” Judicature 100(3), 14-23, 2016.
  • “OPCIONES DE MEDIACIÓN PARA RESOLVER DISPUTAS COMERCIALES EN CHINA,” Revista Chilena de Derecho 41(1), 153-170, 2014 (in Spanish).
  • “The Enigma of Civil Justice in Imperial China: A Legal Historical Enquiry,” Maastricht Journal of European and Comparative Law 19(2), 317-337, 2012.
  • “Reforming the Rules for Service of Originating Process in Hong Kong,” Herald of Civil Procedure 1, 224-244, 2012.
  • “Three Years of Civil Justice Reform: Constructing a Cost-Effective and Efficient Civil Procedure in Hong Kong,” Acta Universitatis Lucian Blaga 2, 181-202, 2011.

• D. BOOK CHAPTERS

  • “China’s Unique Mediation Experience: The Future of Judicial Mediation in the Information Age” in Masood Ahmed and David Sixsmith eds., The Place of Mediation within the Modern Civil Justice System: Critical Perspectives, Edward Elgar Publishing Limited, forthcoming 2026.
  • Magdalena Tulibacka, Peter C.H. Chan, Mohammed Paleker and Eduardo Silva de Freitas, “European Civil Procedure from a Non-European Perspective” in Xandra Kramer, Stefaan Voet and Adriani Dori eds., Handbook European Civil Procedure, De Gruyter, forthcoming 2026.
  • “Allocation of Cases Based on Geography (Jurisdiction and Venue of the Court)”, in Comparative Procedural Law and Justice, available at https://www.cplj.org/publications/5-2-allocations-of-cases-based-on-geography.
  • Peter C.H. Chan and Antonio Cabral, “Digitization of Judicial Procedure: AI, ODR, Blockchain and e-justice,” in Margaret Y.K. Woo and Cornelius Hendrik van Rhee eds., Comparative Civil Procedure, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing Limited, p. 418-444, 2025.
  • Feng Lin, David Holloway, Linda Chelan Li, Peter C.H. Chan, et al., “Hong Kong as Belt-Road Dispute Resolution Hub,” in Linda Chelan Li, Phyllis Lai Lan Mo and Iris Chui Ping Kam eds., Hong Kong Professional Services and the Belt-Road Initiative: Challenges for Co-evolving Sustainability, Routledge, 2021.
  • Peter C.H. Chan and C.H. (Remco) van Rhee, “Introduction,” in Peter C.H. Chan and C.H. (Remco) van Rhee eds., Civil Case Management in the Twenty-First Century: Court Structures Still Matter, Singapore: Springer, 2021.
  • Peter C.H. Chan and Ubaid Rehman, “Curbing Adversarial Excesses: An Evaluation of the Expert Evidence Regime in Hong Kong After the Civil Justice Reform,” in C.H. van Rhee & Alan Uzelac eds., Evidence in Contemporary Civil Procedure: Fundamental Issues in a Comparative Perspective, Antwerp: Intersentia, 193-222, 2015.
  • “Civil Appeals and Other Means of Recourse Against Judgments in China: A Critical Review of the Procedural Issues,” in C.H. van Rhee & Alan Uzelac eds., Nobody’s Perfect: Comparative Essays on Appeals and other Means of Recourse against Judicial Decisions in Civil Matters, Antwerp: Intersentia, 161-210, 2014.
  • Peter C.H. Chan and David Chan, “Civil Justice with Multiple Objectives: The Unique Path of Hong Kong’s Civil Justice Reform,” in Alan Uzelac ed., Goals of Civil Justice and Civil Procedure in Contemporary Judicial Systems, Springer, 143-165, 2014.
  • “Efficiency and Truth in Civil Fact-finding,” in C.H. van Rhee & Alan Uzelac eds., Truth and Efficiency in Civil Litigation: Fundamental Aspects of Fact-finding and Evidence-taking in a Comparative Context, Antwerp: Intersentia, p. 231-260, 2012.
  • Peter C.H. Chan, David Chan and Lei Chen, “China: Hong Kong. Selective Adoption of the English Woolf Reforms,” in C.H. van Rhee and Yulin Fu eds., Civil Litigation in China and Europe: Essays on the Role of the Judge and the Parties, Springer, 71-125, 2012.

• E. PROFESSIONAL ARTICLES / COMMISSIONED REPORTS

  • Zvonimir Jelinić and Peter C.H. Chan, “Resolving Commercial Disputes with an International Element – Solutions from the People’s Republic of China and the Republic of Croatia with Special emphasis on court mediation proceedings,” Croatian Arbitration Yearbook 19, 209-238, 2012.
  • “Legal Representation for Arrestees at a Police Station: An Overview of the Legal Aid Schemes in Five Jurisdictions,” commissioned by the Interest Group on Scope of Legal Aid, Legal Aid Services Council, Hong Kong, 2011.

• F. BOOK REVIEWS

  • Review of Towards a Chinese Civil Code: Comparative and Historical Perspectives (edited by Lei Chen and C.H. (Remco) van Rhee) (Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 2012), Comparative Legal History 2(1), 128-133, 2014.
  • Review of Mediation: Principles and Regulation in Comparative Perspective (edited by Klaus J. Hopt and Felix Steffek) (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2013), European Business Organization Law Review 14(4), 613-618, 2013.
  • Review of Hong Kong Administrative Law (by Swati Jhaveri, Michael Ramsden and Anne Scully-Hill) (Hong Kong: LexisNexis, 2010), City University of Hong Kong Law Review 2(1), 210-212, 2010.