Prof. Peter Chau
Associate Professor
BSocSc (Government and Laws) (HKU), LLB (HKU), MPhil (Oxon), DPhil (Oxon)
Biography
Peter Chau, Associate Professor, joined the Faculty in August 2011. Having graduated from The University of Hong Kong with a double degree in government and laws, he went to Oxford for postgraduate studies, where he obtained his MPhil (supervised by Daniel McDermott and John Tasioulas) and DPhil (supervised by John Gardner and Daniel McDermott).
Peter’s research focuses on criminal law and sentencing, but he is interested in theoretical issues arising in many other branches of law as well. He teaches Criminal Law, Equity and Trusts, and Legal Theory.
Publications
External Peer-reviewed Competitive Research Grants
Research journal articles and book chapters
“Temptations, Social Deprivation, and Punishment” (2010)
– Oxford Journal of Legal Studies 30(4): 775-785
“Poverty, Distributive Justice, and Punishment” (2012)
– Canadian Journal of Law and Jurisprudence 25(1): 39-52
“Duff on the Legitimacy of Punishment of Socially Deprived Offenders” (2012)
– Criminal Law and Philosophy 6(2): 247-254
“Excluding Integrity? Revisiting Non-Consequentialist Justifications for Excluding Improperly Obtained Evidence in Criminal Trials” (2016)
– In Jill Hunter, Paul Roberts, Simon Young, and David Dixon (eds), The Integrity of Criminal Process (Oxford: Hart Publishing) 267-279
“Bennett’s Expressive Justification of Punishment” (2017)
– Criminal Law and Philosophy 11(4): 661-679
“Loss-Based Retributive Justifications of Punishment” (2017)
– Oxford Journal of Legal Studies 37(3): 618-635
“Punishment and Bad Upbringing” (2018)
– Criminal Justice Ethics 37(2): 103-121
“Hoskins’s New Benefit-Fairness Theory of Punishment” (2019)
– Criminal Law and Philosophy 13(1): 49-61
“John Gardner’s Continuity Theory of Corrective Justice” (2023)
– In Michelle Dempsey and François Tanguay-Renaud (eds), From Morality to Law and Back Again: A Liber Amicorum for John Gardner (Oxford University Press)
“The Value of Choice: Scanlon on Paternalism and State-Sponsored Health Care” (2024)
– In Hon-Lam Li (ed), Lanson Lectures in Bioethics: 2016-2022 – Assisted Suicide, Responsibility, and Pandemic Ethics (Palgrave Macmillan) [with a reply from T.M. Scanlon]
“Agreement and Restitutionary Liability for Mistaken Payments” (2024, with Lusina Ho)
– In Sagi Peari and Warren Swain (eds), Rethinking Unjust Enrichment: History, Sociology, Theory & Doctrine (Oxford University Press)
“Tort Law and Contractualism” (forthcoming)
– Law and Philosophy
Notes, reviews, and textbook chapters
Review of David Eslund’s Democracy Authority (2008)
– Journal of Value Inquiry 42(3): 411-415
“Raz on the Methodology of Jurisprudence” (2010)
– Law and Philosophy 29(2): 231-242 (Review of Joseph Raz’s Between Authority and Interpretation)
“Abolishing By-Elections to Fill Vacancies in the Legislative Council” (2011, with Simon Young)
– Hong Kong Law Journal 41(3): 601-609
Review of Grenville Cross and Patrick Cheung, Sentencing in Hong Kong (6th edition) (2012)
– Hong Kong Law Journal 42(1): 277-278
“Criminal Law” (2015, in Chinese)
– In Albert Chen, Jonathan Cheung, Johannes Chan, and Alice Lee (eds), Introduction to Hong Kong Law (3rd edition: Joint Publishing, 2015) [中文: “刑法”，收於陳弘毅, 張增平, 陳文敏, 及李雪菁(合編), 香港法概論 第三版 (香港: 三聯書店, 2015).]
2015: Hong Kong Research Grant Council’s General Research Fund, on “Proportionality in Criminal Punishment” (sole PI)
HK$291,250, 24 months.
Completed on 31 December 2017.
2018: Hong Kong Research Grant Council’s General Research Fund, on “Examining Non-Instrumental Justifications for Tort Compensation” (sole PI)
HK$260,000, 24 months.
Expected completion date: 31 December 2020.