# Huang Kuo-chang

Huang Kuo-chang (Chinese: 黃國昌; pinyin: Huáng Guóchāng; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: N̂g Kok-chhiong, born (1973-08-19)19 August 1973) is a Taiwanese politician, legal scholar, and activist. A member of the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), he has led the TPP Legislative Yuan caucus since 2024, after being elected from its party list. He has served as the TPP’s chairman since 2025.
Before entering politics, Huang graduated from National Taiwan University and earned his master's degree and doctorate in law from Cornell University in the United States. He was a leading figure in the 2014 Sunflower Student Movement before he became the leader of the New Power Party (NPP). He served as an NPP legislator representing New Taipei City’s 12th constituency from 2016 to 2020.

## Early life and education

Huang Kuo-chang was born into a traditional farming family in Xizhi Township, Taipei County. He graduated from National Taiwan University with a Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.) in 1995, and then continued his education in the United States at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, where he earned a Master of Laws (LL.M.) and a Doctor of Juridical Science (J.S.D.) in 2002 from Cornell Law School. As of 2025, Huang is a member of Cornell's Journal of Empirical Legal Studies.
Huang had been the Rudolf B. Schlesinger Fellow at Cornell Law School from 1999 to 2000, a legal researcher at the University of Tokyo from 2000 to 2001, and was a visiting scholar at Cornell from 2001 to 2002. His 2003 doctoral dissertation was titled, "Introducing discovery into civil law", and was supervised by Kevin M. Clermont, Cornell's Robert D. Ziff Professor of Law, and law professors Theodore Eisenberg and Jeffrey J. Rachlinski. In 2006, Huang entered the Academia Sinica as a researcher in the Institute of Jurisprudence (中央研究院法律學研究所) and left in 2015.

## Legislative Yuan
### 9th Legislative Yuan

One of the leading figures of the Sunflower Student Movement, Huang joined the New Power Party in May 2015, and was named acting chairperson in July. That same month, Huang announced that he would run in the 2016 legislative election as a New Power Party candidate in the 12th constituency of New Taipei City. The constituency was represented by incumbent Kuomintang (KMT) legislator Lee Ching-hua. In September, the NPP announced that Huang would serve on a seven-member committee of party leaders, which included Freddy Lim and Neil Peng. The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) did not run any candidates in the constituency in order to support Huang. On 16 January 2016, Huang beat the incumbent Lee and won the election. After taking office, Huang was assigned to the Finance Committee.
On 16 December 2017, a recall election was held against Huang [zh] over his support for same-sex marriage. Votes in favor of the recall outnumbered those against, but fell short of the required threshold, one-fourth of the district's total electorate. Huang stepped down as chairman of the New Power Party in January 2019. In June 2019, Huang stated that he would leave the New Power Party if it became a "sidekick" of the Democratic Progressive Party, but he denied that he was forming a new political party.

### 2020 campaign

Huang stated in August 2019 that he would support the 2020 legislative campaign of Lai Chia-lun [zh], who sought to succeed Huang as the legislator representing New Taipei 12. Huang was offered a position on the New Power proportional representation party list. Though the party backed his return to the Legislative Yuan, it later explored drafting Huang to contest the 2020 Taiwan presidential election. Huang refused to stand for election, and the New Power Party later announced that it would not nominate a presidential candidate. Huang was ranked fourth on the New Power Party list of at-large legislative candidates. The NPP won over seven percent of the party list vote, allowing only three at-large legislative candidates to take office.
In 2020, Huang cofounded the Taiwan Anti-corruption and Whistleblower Protection Association.

### 11th Legislative Yuan

On 16 November 2023, Huang announced that he had filed paperwork to join the Taiwan People's Party (TPP). Huang won election to the Legislative Yuan on the TPP's proportional representation party list in the 2024 legislative election. He was subsequently named the TPP caucus convener for the 11th Legislative Yuan. He sits on the Judiciary and Organic Laws and Statutes Committee.

## Taiwan People's Party chairmanship

Following the resignation of Ko Wen-je from the Taiwan People's Party chairmanship on 1 January 2025, the party's central committee elected Huang as acting chair. Shortly after the TPP scheduled a chairmanship by-election for 15 February, Huang declared his candidacy for the position. He won the position in a landslide with 8,903 votes to Tsai Pi-ru's 360 votes. He will serve as the TPP's chair until 31 December 2026, when Ko's term was originally scheduled to end.

## Publications

* Journal Articles
** Kuo-Chang Huang, Kong-Pin Chen, Chang-Ching Lin, 2015, "Party Capability versus Court Preference: Why do the "Haves" Come Out Ahead?－An Empirical Lesson from the Taiwan Supreme Court", Journal of Law Economics & Organization, 31(1), 93–126. (SSCI) (IF: 1.036; SSCI ranking: 37.7%,30.5%)
** Kuo-Chang Huang, Chang-Ching Lin, & Kong-Pin Chen, 2014, "Do Rich and Poor Behave Similarly in Seeking Legal Advice? Lessons from Taiwan in Comparative Perspective", Law & Society Review, 48(1), 193–223. (SSCI) (IF: 1.31; SSCI ranking: 22.1%,21.2%)
** Kuo-Chang Huang & Chang-Ching Lin, 2014, "Mock Jury Trials in Taiwan—Paving theGround for Introducing Lay Participation", Law and Human Behavior, 38(4), 367–377. (SSCI) (IF: 2.153; SSCI ranking: 7.6%,16.7%)
* Book Chapters
** Kuo-Chang Huang, accepted, "The Effect of Stakes on Settlement—An Empirical Lesson from Taiwan", editor(s): Theodore Eisenberg, Giovanni Battista Ramello EDS, Research Handbooks in Comparative Law and Economics, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing.
** Kuo-Chang Huang, accepted, "Using Associations as a Vehicle for Class Action—The Case of Taiwan", editor(s): Deborah Hensler, Christ Hodge EDS, Class Action in Context, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing
* Conference Papers
** Kuo-Chang Huang, 2014, "The Impacts of Judicial Reform in Taiwan", paper presented at 4th Brazilian Jurimetrics Conference, Brazil: Brazilian Jurimetrics Association, 2014-05-12 ~ 2014-05-16.