Human Rights in Xi Jinping’s China PANEL DISCUSSION N B

PAN EL D ISCU SSIO N
Friday, 25 November 2014, 2:00-4:00 pm
The Auditorium, China in the World Building (188)
Fellows Lane, The Australian National University, Canberra
Human Rights in Xi Jinping’s China
N ICHOLAS BEQUELIN
SARAH B I DDULPH
S USAN T REVASkES
Senior China Researcher,
Human Rights Watch
The University of Melbourne,
Law School
Griffith University and Australian
Centre on China in the World (ANU)
Renewed Trouble in China’s
Peripheries: Turmoil in Hong
Kong, Taiwan, Tibet and Xinjiang
Reform of administrative
detention powers: how much
and what does it mean?
Xi Jinping’s
Authoritarian
rule of law
Nicholas Bequelin is Senior Researcher in the Asia division of
Human Rights Watch, based in
Hong Kong, and a former Visiting Scholar at the China Law
Center, Yale University. He obtained his PhD in History from
the School of Advanced Studies in Social Sciences (EHESS),
Paris, in 2001, and is a graduate
in Chinese from the School of
Oriental Languages and Civilizations.
Sarah Biddulph is professor of
law and an ARC Future Fellow.
Her academic career builds on
extensive experience of Chinese-related legal practice obtained whilst working as a lawyer
in Australia and in China. Professor Biddulph’s research focuses
on the Chinese legal system with
an emphasis on legal policy, law
making and enforcement as they
affect the administration of justice in China.
Sue Trevaskes is an Australian Research Council QEII Research Fellow at Griffith University. She is also an Adjunct
Director of the Centre for China
in the World (CIW) at The Australian National University. Her
main research interests are in
criminal justice, punishment
and courts in China. She is currently examining serious drug
crime and the death penalty in
China.
T
he current Chinese leadership is attempting to
reshape China’s justice agenda by encouraging
‘rule of law-consciousness’ in public and governmental affairs. The Fourth Plenum of the Eighteenth Party
Congress in October 2014 highlights socialist ‘rule
of law’ as a touchstone of Xi Jinping’s governance
intentions for China in the coming years. However,
a number of crackdowns across different sectors of
society – from suspected terrorist to pro-transparency advocates and Internet bloggers – raise seri-
ous doubts about the party-state’s commitment to
the position of human rights in its rule of law push.
The three speakers in this panel discussion will address issues concerning the relationship between
legal and political reforms and human rights in contemporary China. More specifically, they will focus
on issues related to justice reform, the abolition of
the system of re-education through labour and the
most recent developments in ‘China’s peripheries’
seen from a human rights perspective.
HOSTED BY
Australian Centre on China in the World
ANU College of Asia & the Pacific
OPEN AND free to the public
Human Rights Watch
Hong Kong
T 02 6125 7086 E ciw@anu.edu.au
W http://ciw.anu.edu.au