Hungdah Chiu

Hungdah Chiu
"Qiu Hongda" in Chinese characters
Traditional Chinese	丘宏達
Simplified Chinese	丘宏达
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Qiū Hóngdá Bopomofo ㄑㄧㄡㄏㄨㄥˊㄉㄚˊ Wade–Giles Ch’iu Hung-ta Southern Min Hokkien POJ Khu Hông-ta̍t

Hungdah Chiu (Chinese: 丘宏達; pinyin: Qiū Hóngdá; March 23, 1936 – April 12, 2011) was a Taiwanese legal scholar. He was the president of the Association of Chinese Social Scientists in North America (1984–86) and president of the American Association for Chinese Studies (1985–87). From 1993 to 1994, he served as a minister without portfolio in the Executive Yuan. He was also the president of the International Law Association from 1998 to 2000.^[1]

Chiu was born in Shanghai on March 23, 1936, to a prominent political family affiliated with the Kuomintang (KMT).^[2] His eldest brother, Qiu Hong-ren, was a political dissident in Taiwan. Another brother, Hong-Yee Chiu, became an astrophysicist. Their father, Qiu Han-ping, was a law professor who graduated from Soochow University, earned his doctorate from George Washington University,^[3] and served as a KMT legislator.^[2] The family moved to Taiwan in 1949 during the Great Retreat.^[2]

After high school, Chiu studied law at National Taiwan University (NTU), where he was a student of Professor Peng Ming-min.^[4] After graduating from NTU with a Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.) in 1958, he went to the United States and received a Master of Arts (M.A.) in political science from Long Island University in 1962. He then pursued doctoral studies at Harvard University, where he earned a Master of Laws (LL.M.) in 1962 and his Doctor of Juridical Science (S.J.D.) in 1965 from Harvard Law School.^[5]

At Harvard, Chiu was classmates with U.S. Senator Elizabeth Dole (the daughter of Senator Bob Dole) and Randle Edwards, who became an endowed professor of law at Columbia University.^[6][7] He completed his doctoral thesis on public international law in 1964 under law professor Louis B. Sohn.^[7] His dissertation was titled, "The capacity of international organizations to conclude treaties, and the special legal aspects of the treaties so concluded".^[8]

After receiving his doctorate from Harvard, Chiu was a research associate at Harvard Law School from 1966 to 1970. During this time, he became a close associate of Professor Jerome A. Cohen.^[7] He then returned to Taiwan and was a professor of law at National Chengchi University from 1970 to 1972. He left the university in 1972 to continue working as a research associate at Harvard Law School (1972–1974), then became an associate professor at the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law.^[9]

Chiu was a pro-democracy advocate during the period of martial law in Taiwan.^[10]

Chiu died in Washington, D.C., on April 12, 2011. His wife, Hsieh Yuan-yuan (謝元元), worked at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Although he lived in the United States for approximately 50 years, Chiu never became a naturalized U.S. citizen.^[11]

• Order of Brilliant Star 1st Class with Special Grand Cordon^[1]

• Zang, Dongsheng (May 22, 2012). "China's "Attitude" toward Human Rights: Reading Hungdah Chiu in the Era of the Iraq War". Maryland Journal of International Law. 27 (1). University of Maryland School of Law: 263–303.

• Page at Princeton University Press
• Tributes in the Maryland Journal of International Law
• Portrait at the Ministry of Culture