RESEARCH
My academic backgrounds featured strongly on Business or Commercial Law, with particular emphasis on Maritime Law. Whilst my PhD was on marine insurance law, I am very much willing to research into and analyse problems in maritime law in general. As far as my PhD thesis could be described, it focused on the contemporary problems from the doctrine of the utmost good faith (uberrimae fidei) and the duty of disclosure - two significant principles in marine insurance law (and indeed in insurance law in general), the origin of which has been suggested to be derived from the judgment of Lord Mansfield in Carter v. Boehm (1766) 3 Burr. 1905 and are codified in ss.17-20 of the Marine Insurance Act 1906 ("MIA") (Hong Kong equivalent - Marine Insurance Ordinance (Cap.329)). It has been of the view among judges, academic commentators, and lawyers that these principles are somewhat rigid and create injustices and reform must be undertaken. Numerous case laws have addressed the problems and now reform of these is underway along the joint project of the English and the Scottish Law Commissions.
Problems concerning the law on the duty of disclosure may be summarised in two significant aspects. First, the law states essentially tha the assured needs to provide the insurer with 'material' information prior to the conclusion of a marine insurance contract. Which fact can be seen as material, the law rests upon the consideration of the 'prudent insurer', which is a hypothetical reasonably experienced insurer. It is therefore in practice hard for the assured to determine what information he must disclose. Whilst revealing all information is commercially unfeasible, the law further states that, upon the failure of the assured to disclose material information, the insurer is having a right to avoid the contract from the beginning, so-called avoidance ab initio - regardless of the assured's degree of culpability. These two features are fixed by the language of the MIA. Therefore, my research assessed justifications for the reform to the MIA and how the relevant provisions should be amended.
In doing so, the comparative approach was adopted into my thesis by considering the solutions identified in other jurisdictions to see whether some of these may be adapted into the UK if reform will be introduced. Proposals from the Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC) recommended the change to the Marine Insurance Act 1909 (Cth), a statute whic is virtually identical to the MIA, were considered. Legal thoughts from South Africa were also explored since, historically, the laws in this jurisdiction were heavily influenced by the English legal system, even though one may suggest that this jurisdiction adopts a mixed legal system due to the equal influence from the Roman-Dutch laws. It has been suggested in South Africa that the doctrine of the utmost good faith in insurance law should not be recognised and that insurance contracts should be rested on the standard of the "reasonable man". My research also extended to the relevant provisions in the Norwegian Marine Insurance Plan of 1996, the legal instrument which contains more flexible approach to the duty of disclosure and stipulates less stringent remedial system but its legal status is just a standard contractual term, not a statute. This challenges the statutory reform to the MIA.
My PhD research concluded from comparative perspective that none of the approaches identified in other jurisdictions are without problems. It further discovered that judges and academic commentators post-Lord Mansfield's era have failed to realise his Lordship's original intention in Carter v. Boehm. It traced the background of Lord Mansfield and argued, among other things, that his Lordship was heavily influenced by the 'Natural Law School of Thought'. Support from this can be gleaned from Latin terms he quoted in his judgment which in turn could be traced to the work of a renowned natural philosopher, Cicero, in his famous literature, De Officiis. Therefore, my thesis proceeded to re-interpret the judgment of Lord Mansfield against such backgrounds and proposed that the term 'utmost good faith' has no significant meanings attached to it and, like in South Africa, mairne insurance contract should be based upon the wide notion of justice and fairness recognised in the concept of good faith (bonae fidei) and that Lord Mansfield mentioned 'concealment' in terms of deliberate non-disclosure only. Following these, it further proposed the abolition of the remedy of avoidance in s.17 of the MIA and instead discretion should be granted to the courts to determine the remedy appropriate to the circumstances in each individual case. However, the remedy of avoidance should be retained in s.18 but the scope of the duty should be re-formulated to reflect Lord Mansfield's understanding and, to this extent, the remedy has a policing function to sanction the conduct with 'moral guilt'. On the basis of fairness, damages should be available for the assured in case of non-disclosure by the insurer and conceptually nothing seems to bar the operation of such remedy except the current language of the MIA. In my thesis, on the basis that reform will be undertaken, the draft provisions were presented and recommended.
Considering that the MIA has been understood to codify some aspects of the 'common law' on insurance and therefore the provisions in this statute also govern non-marine insurance law in relevant respects, the question ten is whether there should be a separate statute for non-marine insurance or else for consumer insurance. My future research will address tis question in light of the unclear sign and direction from the existing project of the English and the Scottish Law Commissions.
Non-marine insurance - In the context of non-marine insurance, my research will focus on the approaches for reform identified in some previous reports of the Law Commission as well as the existing joint-project of the English and the Scottish Law Commissions. Comparative analysis will be made with the application of the Insurance Contracts Act 1984 (Cth) of Australia nd the on-going project of the European Working Group on the Restatement of Insurance Contract Law to produce the "Unified Mandatory Principles of European Insurance Contract Law". Publications to discuss some potential approaches for insurance contract law reform are expected to be produced from this research.
Marine insurance - It is not entirely clear in the UK whether marine and non-marine insurance contractual regimes will be distinguished. My research, which is developed from my PhD thesis submitted to the University of Leicester, will explore some potential routes to marine insurance law reform. In doing so, voluminous case laws which reflect contemporaneous legal problems in many areas of marine insurance law will be analysed. The comparative approach with the Australian Law Reform Commission's proposals on the reform of the Marine Insurance Act 1909 (Cth) will be maintained. The analysis of cases will hopefully be published in legal journals as well as on-line.
The above-mentioned research plans are on-going in nature and will not be limited to the aspect of the doctrine of the utmost good faith. Instead, my research is extended to other continuous issues in marine/non-marine insurance, such as breaches of warranties and claims. I also conduct my researches more broadly in the realm of Admiralty and Maritime Law.
TEACHING
I hope one day I can become a lecturer in a university as that is perhaps what my PhD qualification can be mostly utilised. In terms of teaching, I believe that students should benefit from the expertise of academic staffs and such expertise can only be gained through research. Therefore, research and teaching should go hand-in-hand. My tentative view on teaching is that the style needs to be flexible according to each classroom situation. As I know, most institutions employ either lecture or tutorial method or both in teaching and learning, the style of teaching should be adapted to each method accordingly.
In terms of classroom lecture, my tentative view is that the role of it is to allow the tutor to emphasise the important legal issues to students and the gist of the subject-matter should be concluded. Otherwise, the lecture will be no different from that the students read the textbooks on the subject themselves. As such, the lesson must be prepared so that it can flow logically and is easy for students to make notes. Emphasis must be placed on difficult legal issues and important cases should be explained in some details but too technical details inappropriate to the level should be omitted and irrelevant issues do not have to be mentioned in the class.
Regarding the tutorial, I see it as a multi-pupose exercise. It is a good opportunity to re-emphasise some difficult points which students may miss out during the lecture and also a good chance to test students' understanding of the subject-matter and small group-teaching additionally provides a tutor with a chance to observe each individual student's style of learning. Each session can be used to develop students' critical thinking skills, research skills, and even team-working skills. Therefore, different activities and teaching styles should be used in each tutorial session. For example, we may give group activity following the questions set out in tutorial sheet. Each group may have to prepare the answer to one of the questions in the sheet and report it back to the whole class. The tutor should prepare to step in if students give seemingly wrong answer to the question. If it is an open question with more than one possible answer, then it should be opened to discuss by the whole class and the role of the tutor should be to conclude the gist of each view on the matter. But, such group activity should not be done in all tutorial sessions. Instead, for some sessions, individual student may be asked to give answer to one of the questions in the tutorial sheet to test his/her preparation for the class and his/her understanding of the subject-matter. The conclusion of each session should be made so that students can feel 'at ease' with the subject-matter. For some questions, students may be encouraged to seek for answer by themselves from doing small researches and the tutor may check what they have found in the next session.
In the end, I think research skills and the ability to think independently are important to students' development as good lawyers as law itself is a dynamic matter. But, the challenging question may be how one can ensure that students will apply 'law' in the right way. Students should be instilled with morality and ethic. This is exactly my role in the capacity of both a lecturer and a personal tutor.
From my research and teaching interests described above, I am therefore keen to teach on the subjects relevant to my research area. To this extent, 'Marine Insurance' is directly relevant. In a wider sense, I am also willing to teach 'Maritime Law' or 'Admiralty Law'. I can also take up a course on 'Insurance Law'. I am also interested in doing some tutorials on 'Jurisprudence', which an aspect of 'natural law' was adopted into my PhD thesis. My research contains strong comparative element and therefore I see myself suitable for taking a course on 'Comparative Law' which focuses on methodology and analysis where students can benefit from my first-hand experiences. Considering my five-year background of education in the UK, I also have a potential to teach some introductory subjects to the Common Law legal system.
