Yale Bulletin and Calendar

April 6, 2007|Volume 35, Number 24

True potential for reform
in China to be explored

"Defending Rights Through Law in China: Progress and Challenges" will be the topic of the annual Robert L. Bernstein International Human Rights Fellowship Symposium, to be held Thursday-Friday, April 12-13, at the Yale Law School, 127 Wall St.

The Robert L. Bernstein Fellowships in International Human Rights enable two Yale Law School graduates to devote a year to full-time human rights work. The fellowships were established in 1997 to honor Bernstein, the founding chair of Human Rights Watch and former chair, president and chief executive officer of Random House.

The symposium, which is free and open to the public, will examine the nature of reform through law currently possible in China. It will focus on the tension between progress and cooptation, bringing together members of the community of "rights defenders" -- lawyers and social activists challenging particular legal violations explicitly to promote systemic political change -- and the skeptics of a law-based strategy of reform for China.

The event will begin on Thursday with presentations by the two current Bernstein Fellows, one of whom is documenting sexual violence in the current civil war on the Ivory Coast, the other of whom is helping to expand the legal resources for prisoners seeking to challenge human rights violations in Argentine prisons. The discussion will take place at 6 p.m. in the faculty lounge.

Friday's events will include a conversation between Professor Jerome Cohen of New York University Law School, Professor Jonathan Spence of Yale and Orville H. Schell III, dean of the School of Journalism at the University of California-Berkeley (11 a.m., Rm. 120), a panel on "Strategies for Using Law and Reforming Law to Protect Rights in China" (1:15 p.m., Rm. 127), another panel on "Critical Perspectives on the Impact of Legal Advocacy and Reform Strategies" (3:15 p.m., Rm. 127) and a reception and introduction of the 2007-2008 Bernstein Fellows (5:30 p.m., location to be announced). Among the panelists will be Li Fan, director of the World-China Institute in Beijing; Xu Zhiyong, director of the Open Constitution Initiative and lecturer at Beijing University of Post and Telecommunications; Zhou Dan, executive director of Yu Dan in Shanghai; Nicholas Bequelin, China researcher at Human Rights Watch; and Titi Liu, program officer at the Ford Foundation.

The symposium is sponsored by the Orville H. Schell Jr. Center for International Human Rights and the China Law Center at Yale Law School. For further information, visit the website at www.law.yale.edu/intellectuallife/4381.htm.

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