16 Lucia M. Rafanelli But my analysis casts doubt on statist institutions’ capacity to deliver justice for stateless people—not only because they may inadequately address stateless people’s needs in the short term, but also because continuing to treat them as the world’s primary political authorities may reinforce their power, entrenching the state system’s current structure, centred around the Political Authority and Sovereignty Principles—which creates statelessness in the first place. This raises the question, if working within statist institutions is unproductive—or even counterproductive— when it comes to achieving justice for stateless people, what alternative modes of political action might be preferable? In Hong Kong, some asylum seekers responded to ineffective statist institutions by engaging in resistance—both in the sense of breaking the law and in the sense of refusing to live according to the script dominant norms and institutions had given them. Some aspects of asylum seekers’ resistance might be cast as opposition to the behaviour of the Hong Kong government at the time, rather than opposition to either organising principle of the state system (the Political Authority Principle or the Sovereignty Principle). However, I argue that other aspects of asylum seekers’ resistance do represent challenges to these principles and that to ignore this would be to miss an important element of their advocacy. What, then, did Hong Kong asylum seekers’ resistance look like? Some worked to support themselves, despite it being illegal and punishable with imprisonment.73 In 2013, a group of asylum seekers also had a confrontation with police at a branch of the International Social Service (ISS, the non-profit group the government contracts to provide asylum seekers assistance).74 They had gone to the ISS hoping for assistance to secure decent living accommodations, but the ISS refused to meet with them.75 Subsequently, asylum seekers led a protest and eventually (in early 2014) a sit-in at the ISS (again ending in a confrontation with police), objecting to unfair treatment and inadequate food assistance.76 After this initial sit-in, many more asylum seekers joined the effort, occupying several ISS offices.77 This was the beginning of the asylum-seeker-led activist organisation Refugee Union and its protest movement, Refugee Occupy, which would eventually set up camp at a footbridge in Hong Kong’s Central District.78 Refugee Union occupied public spaces for 200 days.79 73 Vecchio and Ham 2018, 208. Ibid., 208, 211. 75 Ibid., 211. 76 Ibid. 77 Ibid. 78 Ibid., 210–1. As Vecchio and Ham (2018, 202–3) note, international law distinguishes ‘refugees’ (people who have been found by a relevant institution to meet the international legal criteria for refugeehood) from asylum seekers (whose asylum claims may not have been vindicated by a formal institution). However, given Hong Kong’s similarly harsh treatment of refugees and other asylum seekers, this distinction is blurred in practice there (Vecchio and Ham 2018, 202–3). Moreover, asylum-seeker activists in Hong Kong identified themselves as refugees, using that term more generally to encompass people who seek asylum—which Vecchio and Ham (2018, 202–3) present as a self-conscious assertion of status that Hong Kong and the international community often denies them. In describing these activists’ work, I will sometimes follow their lead, using the term ‘refugee’ as they do, recognising that this is a broader usage than it is afforded in international law. 79 Vecchio and Ham 2018, 202. 74 https://doi.org/10.1017/S175297192500003X Published online by Cambridge University Press