Hong Kong as an Actor in International Economic Law offers a timely and conceptually ambitious account of how a non-sovereign jurisdiction can function as an influential participant in international economic law. Against a literature still largely structured around sovereign states, Chaisse places Hong Kong at the centre of inquiry and asks a broader question: how external legal capacity is exercised, sustained, and contested in Asia through treaty practice, institutional participation, and dispute settlement when sovereignty is absent or attenuated. The book will therefore resonate with Asian Journal of International Law readers as not only a study of Hong Kong but also a contribution to understanding the organization of international law in a region marked by diverse constitutional arrangements and pragmatic legal experimentation. The book’s principal strength lies in its organizing method. Rather than treating trade, investment, and tax as discrete regimes, Chaisse integrates them within a single analytical frame and traces each across three levels of action: unilateral, bilateral, and multilateral. This two-axis matrix – cross-sector integration mapped onto a three-level ladder of legal engagement – sets the work apart from much of the existing literature, which tends to operate along only one axis. By placing both axes in view, the book allows readers to see how policy choices in trade condition those in investment and taxation, and how a single economic objective can migrate from domestic measures to bilateral instruments and onward into multilateral fora.

Part I establishes the unilateral foundations of Hong Kong’s external economic engagement. Chaisse shows how domestic legal and institutional design, particularly in customs, investment promotion, and tax administration, creates the preconditions for credible participation beyond the territory. These chapters are less about isolation than about projection: unilateral measures are presented as outward-looking tools that enable Hong Kong to signal regulatory reliability and legal autonomy to external partners. This framing usefully challenges the assumption that unilateralism necessarily implies inwardness or protectionism, especially in the context of a highly open economy. Parts II and III develop this argument at the bilateral and multilateral levels respectively. In examining Hong Kong’s network of free trade agreements, investment treaties, and tax arrangements, the book demonstrates how bilateralism functions as a bridge between domestic autonomy and multilateral embeddedness. Hong Kong’s participation in the World Trade Organization (WTO) and other global economic institutions is then analysed as not a derivative or symbolic presence but rather a form of calibrated agency shaped by constitutional constraints and strategic legal choice. Throughout these sections, Chaisse’s integrated approach pays dividends: bilateral investment treaty practice is read alongside tax agreements, and WTO engagement is considered together with investment dispute settlement, revealing connections that are often obscured when regimes are studied in isolation.

Part IV turns to dispute settlement, shifting from substantive rule-making to procedural practice. Hong Kong’s experience in WTO litigation, investor–state dispute settlement, and tax dispute mechanisms illustrates how procedural participation can itself constitute a form of external legal capacity. Particularly effective is the way these discussions loop back to earlier sections, showing how unilateral design choices and treaty-drafting decisions structure later litigation strategies and outcomes. The result is a coherent narrative rather than a compartmentalized survey.

The book also makes a methodological contribution to the literature. Chaisse adopts a constructivist sensibility that combines doctrinal analysis with comparative and institutional insights. This allows him to move beyond formal competence debates and instead focus on how legal capacity is constructed through practice. In doing so, the book aligns with, while also extending, scholarship on non-state and sub-state actors in international law, including work on the European Union, special administrative regions, and autonomous territories. Its Asia-Pacific focus fills a notable gap in the literature, which is still dominated by Euro-Atlantic case studies. However, the book’s breadth occasionally comes at the expense of deeper engagement with certain theoretical debates. Readers seeking sustained dialogue with theories of sovereignty or constitutional pluralism may find these treated implicitly rather than explicitly. These are not omissions but choices of emphasis, and they do not detract from the book’s core contribution.

Chaisse, a professor at City University of Hong Kong, is a leading scholar of international economic law with particular expertise in Asia-Pacific legal developments. His familiarity with both doctrinal details and regional practices is evident throughout the volume. The book’s publication is especially timely given the ongoing debates about institutional innovation in the region, including Hong Kong’s role in emerging mechanisms for commercial and investment dispute resolution, as testified by the International Organization for Mediation. Overall, the book succeeds in reframing how international lawyers think about agency, capacity, and legal ordering beyond the sovereign state. Its integrated, cross-sectoral, and cross-level approach offers a valuable template for future research on international economic law in Asia and beyond.