Anson Chung

I am currently a Ph.D. student in the Political Science Program at the City University of New York (CUNY) – Graduate Center, where I am a Graduate Center Fellow and a Provost’s Enhancement Fellow. I am also part of the American Political Science Association (APSA) Diversity Fellowship Program from 2024–2025. Previously, I received my Masters of Arts Degrees in the Department of Political Science at the University of Toronto, and my Bachelor of Arts Degree in History and Political Science at the City College of New York in 2022, which is also part of the CUNY system. My Research Interest is in Judicial Politics and Constitutional Development, with a focus area on Asian and American jurisdictions. My current research on the MA level focuses on Hong Kong’s Constitutional Development, specifically focusing on the Final Court of Appeals from a Political Development angle. I argue that the Court of Final Appeals did not change in their degree of judicial independence after the establishment of the National Security Law, contrary to public discourse. My plans for my Ph.D. research would focus on constitutional development in Asia, and a major focus on foreign judges in both Hong Kong and the Privy Council of the United Kingdom when judging other commonwealth constitutions. I plan to compare how judges behave when they are in their own jurisdiction and in other jurisdictions where they may only have a little to no institutional and regional context of the question, and to judge on their scope and would differ in their judgment on political issues affects their issue standing.