Academic Staff
Amanda Whitfort
Associate Professor
BA (Hons) Monash, LLB Monash, LLM London, Solicitor and Barrister
Supreme Court of Victoria and High Court of Australia
Barrister of the High Court of Hong Kong SAR
Email | Research Profile | HKU ResearcherPage | SSRN |
Associate Professor Amanda Whitfort BA(Hons)(Monash), LLB(Monash), LLM(London) was admitted as a barrister and solicitor in Australia, and has extensive practical experience in criminal law and prosecutions. Before joining the HKU Law Faculty in 2001, she was the Course Director of the PCLL programme of HKU's School of Professional and Continuing Education. She has participated in design of the new PCLL curriculum, and currently leads the Criminal Litigation course. On the PCLL programme she has taught Criminal and Civil Procedure, Professional Practice and Advocacy. In 2001, the University of London Convocation Trust awarded her the Bridgid Cotter prize for achieving the highest aggregate on the University's External Masters in Laws. After becoming the first local resident of Hong Kong to pass the Overseas Bar Qualification Examination in 2005, she was admitted to the Hong Kong Bar.
In 2008 she was awarded a Public Policy Research Grant (PPRG) for a sum of HK$397,000 by the Research Grants Council (RGC) to provide a comparative review of the animal welfare laws of Hong Kong. She successfully completed this review in 2010. In 2009 she developed and began teaching Animal Law and Rights, the first internationally focused Animal Law course in Asia. In 2011, she was awarded the Law Faculty’s Knowledge Exchange award for her transfer of animal welfare related legal knowledge to the SPCA (Hong Kong), the Hong Kong Administration and the Hong Kong public. In the same year she was awarded a RGC funded Public Impact Knowledge Exchange grant to review Hong Kong’s wild animal conservation legislation. She currently sits on the Hong Kong government’s Legal Advisory Group to the Agriculture Fisheries and Conservation Department and is vice chair of the SPCA (HK) Legal Working Party.
She has published and presented internationally on Criminal and Animal Law and is the leading authority on Animal Welfare Law in Hong Kong. She is a long standing contributor to Archbold Hong Kong (Sweet and Maxwell, Asia) and Halsbury’s Laws of Hong Kong: Vol 1: Animals (Butterworths) and author of Criminal Procedure in Hong Kong: A Guide for Students and Practitioners (LexisNexis, 2nd ed 2012). She is the chief examiner in Criminal Procedure for the Law Society of Hong Kong’s Overseas Lawyers Qualification Examinations and the PCLL Conversion Course.
Specialized Areas: Criminal Law and Procedure, Trial Practice and Advocacy,
Environmental Law (including Animal Law)
Press coverage of Review of Animal Welfare Legislation in Hong Kong
