Eric Yan-ho Lai is a Non-resident Fellow at Georgetown Center for Asian Law and a Visiting Researcher at the Dickson Poon School of Law of King's College London. Born and raised in Hong Kong, Lai has been involved in civil society development and human rights advocacy since 2010. He received his Ph.D. in Law at SOAS University of London in 2022 and Master’s degree from the London School of Economics and Political Science as a Chevening Scholar in 2013. His doctoral research focused on legal transplantation, legal professionalism, and legal mobilization in authoritarian regimes. He also studies judicial politics, national security, social movement, contentious politics, and electoral integrity in Hong Kong and China.

Lai is formerly the Hong Kong Law Fellow at the Georgetown Center for Asian Law, and a Visiting Fellow at Centre for Comparative and Public Law of the University of Hong Kong. He was also a lecturer in Political Science at several universities in Hong Kong. He writes on law and politics, electoral integrity, judicial activism, international human rights, and religious freedom in academic journals, newspapers, and popular literature. Lai is a member of the Asian Civil Society Research Network, and a co-convenor of Hong Kong Studies Association in the U.K.

Last Updated: March 15, 2023

Features

04.05.22

Arrest Data Show National Security Law Has Dealt a Hard Blow to Free Expression in Hong Kong

Eric Yan-ho Lai & Thomas Kellogg
On December 29, 2021, two hundred national security police officers raided a newspaper headquarters and arrested several individuals at various locations across Hong Kong. The exceptional number of police officers involved suggested those arrested...