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Past Events
Upcoming Events: China, the European Union and the International Human Rights Regime
On-line panel, 24th April 2024, 3.00-4.30pm GMT
In recent years, human rights have become an increasingly contentious global issue. Differences over human rights between Western democracies and authoritarian states (such as China, Russia and Iran) have intensified. Many developing states, however, take a middle line, supporting human rights at least in principle but being wary of human rights related actions or institutions which may be viewed as infringing on state sovereignty.
This panel will explore China’s engagement with the international human rights regime and interactions between the European Union and China in this context. Questions to be considered will include: how does China contribute to or seek to shape the international human rights regime? Where external actors or UN institutions are critical of China on human rights, how does China respond? How has the European Union (EU) sought to engage with China on human rights? In relation to human rights issues, how has the EU balanced constructive engagement with China and diplomatic or economic pressure on China (such as sanctions)? What conclusions can be drawn for the future development of the global human rights regime and for EU policy in this space?
Participants
Rana Siu Inboden, University of Texas (https://lbj.utexas.edu/directory/faculty/rana-inboden)
Rana Siu Inboden is an Adjunct Assistant Professor and a senior fellow with the Robert S. Strauss Center for International Security and Law at The University of Texas at Austin. She serves as a consultant on human rights and democracy projects in Asia and research international human rights, Chinese foreign policy, and authoritarian collaboration in the United Nations. She is author of China and the International Human Rights Regime (Cambridge University Press, 2021).
Eva Pils, KCL (https://www.kcl.ac.uk/people/eva-pils)
Eva Pils is Professor of Law at King's College London, an affiliated scholar at the US-Asia Law Institute of New York University Law School, and an external member of the Centre for Human Rights Erlangen-Nürnberg. Her research focuses on autocratic governance and legal resistance. She has also worked extensively on human rights defence in China. She is author of Human Rights in China: A Social Practice in the Shadows of Authoritarianism (John Wiley & Sons, 2017).
Julie Yu-Wen Chen, University of Helsinki (https://www.helsinki.fi/en/about-us/people/people-finder/julie-yu-wen-chen-9366884)
Julie Yu-Wen Chen is Professor of Chinese Studies at the University of Helsinki. From 2023 to 2025, she is in the EU project “The EU in the Volatile Indo-Pacific Region” where she leads research and provides counselling to junior researchers. In 2024, she also leads a policy-oriented project “Order in the Indo-Pacific” sponsored by Germany’s Mercator Stiftung. She is author of The Uyghur Lobby: Global Networks, Coalitions and Strategies of the World Uyghur Congress (Routledge, 2013).
Chair: Prof. Mark Poustie, UCC (https://research.ucc.ie/profiles/B001/mark.poustie@ucc.ie)
Mark Poustie is Professor of Law and the Dean of the School of Law at University College Cork. His scholarship in public law is primarily centred around environmental and land-use planning law, with a particular emphasis on the human rights issues that arise in these areas.