Huang Kuo-chang


Huang Kuo-chang is a Taiwanese legal scholar and politician. A member of the Taiwan People’s Party, he has led the party's caucus in the Legislative Yuan 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. He served as an NPP legislator representing New Taipei City’s 12th constituency from 2016 to 2020.
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Early life and education

Huang was born on August 19, 1973, in Xizhi Township, Taipei County, to a working-class family. His grandfather and father were both farmers, and his mother was an incense and candle vendor. As a high school student, Huang initially studied science to pursue a career in medicine, but decided to switch to law instead. He graduated first in his class from Taipei Municipal Chien Kuo High School.
After high school, Huang studied law at National Taiwan University, where he was elected student council president in his sophomore year. He graduated with a Bachelor of Laws in 1995, then pursued graduate studies at Cornell University, where he earned a Master of Laws and a Doctor of Juridical Science in 2002 from Cornell Law School. His doctoral dissertation, "Introducing discovery into continental civil procedure", was supervised by Kevin M. Clermont, Cornell's Robert D. Ziff Professor of Law, and law professors Theodore Eisenberg and Jeffrey J. Rachlinski.
Before receiving his doctorate, Huang was admitted to the New York State Bar Association in 1999. He was also 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 a visiting scholar at Cornell from 2001 to 2002. As of 2025, Huang is a member of Cornell's Journal of Empirical Legal Studies.

Academic career

Huang has been an assistant professor and an associate professor of law at the National University of Kaohsiung. He was appointed a researcher, a professor-equivalent position, at the Institute of Jurisprudence of Academia Sinica in 2006, but resigned from the position on July 27, 2015, to run for political office.

Legislative Yuan

9th Legislative Yuan

As one of the leading figures of the Sunflower Student Movement, Huang joined the New Power Party in May 2015. In July, he was named acting chairperson and subsequently served on a seven-member committee of party leaders, including Freddy Lim and Neil Peng. Huang ran as an NPP candidate in New Taipei City's 12th constituency in the 2016 legislative election. In support of Huang, the Democratic Progressive Party did not nominate any candidates for the race. Huang won the seat against incumbent Kuomintang legislator Lee Ching-hua and was assigned to the Finance Committee.
On 16 December 2017, a recall election was held against Huang over his support for same-sex marriage. Votes in favor of the recall outnumbered those against, but fell short of the required threshold of one-fourth of the district's total electorate. Huang stepped down as chairman of the New Power Party in January 2019.
On 22 July 2019, Huang, as a New Power Party legislator held a press conference titled “Smuggling While Accompanying on an Official Trip—National Security Bureau, Come Out and Face the Issue.” He accused a National Security Bureau agent Wu Zongxian of allegedly taking advantage of accompanying President Tsai Ing-wen on an overseas visit to pre-order 9,200 cartons of duty-free cigarettes through senior China Airlines officials, amounting to NT$6.45 million, and attempting to bring them into the country by exploiting the special diplomatic customs clearance privileges.
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 said in August 2019 that he would support the 2020 legislative campaign of, who sought to succeed Huang in New Taipei 12. Though the New Power Party backed his return to the Legislative Yuan, it later explored drafting Huang to contest the 2020 Taiwan presidential election. Huang refused, and the NPP later announced that it would not nominate a presidential candidate. Huang was offered a position on the NPP party list, on which he was ranked fourth. The NPP won over seven percent of the party list vote, electing only three at-large legislative candidates.
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. 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. In line with TPP regulations, Huang announced his resignation from the Legislative Yuan in January 2026.

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.
In August 2025, Huang confirmed that he would contest the New Taipei mayoralty during the 2026 local election.

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, 93–126.
  • *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, 193–223.
  • *Kuo-Chang Huang & Chang-Ching Lin, 2014, "Mock Jury Trials in Taiwan—Paving theGround for Introducing Lay Participation", Law and Human Behavior, 38, 367–377.
  • Book Chapters
  • *Kuo-Chang Huang, accepted, "The Effect of Stakes on Settlement—An Empirical Lesson from Taiwan", editor: 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: 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.