The Dislocation of the Chinese Human Rights Movement

A SWORD AND A SHIELD: CHINA'S HUMAN RIGHTS LAWYERS, pp. 141-159, Mosher and Patrick Poon, ed., China Human Rights Lawyers Concern Group, 2009

19 Pages Posted: 25 Mar 2010

See all articles by Eva Pils

Eva Pils

The Dickson Poon School of Law, King's College London, Dickson Poon Transnational Law Institute

Date Written: October 2009

Abstract

This article argues that the increasing number of repressive strikes against human rights lawyers, petitioners, and civil society organizations are disquieting symptoms of a wider, intellectual shift that has occurred over the past few years. This shift has included official and academic attempts at a conceptual dilution of rights, for instance through the confusing rhetoric of ‘harmonious adjudication’ and ‘harmony rights;’ and a shift toward anti-rationalism in judicial processes, for instance through the propagation of the ‘Three Supremes’ doctrine and a reversion to more authoritarian practices of settling disputes. Its problematic further consequence has been the human rights movement’s dislocation, its forced migration into spaces and forms of expression far removed from the – in crucial areas - increasingly inoperable law of state institutions.

Keywords: China, human rights, social movements, human rights defenders, harmony

Suggested Citation

Pils, Eva, The Dislocation of the Chinese Human Rights Movement (October 2009). A SWORD AND A SHIELD: CHINA'S HUMAN RIGHTS LAWYERS, pp. 141-159, Mosher and Patrick Poon, ed., China Human Rights Lawyers Concern Group, 2009, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1564171

Eva Pils (Contact Author)

The Dickson Poon School of Law, King's College London, Dickson Poon Transnational Law Institute ( email )

Somerset House East Wing
Strand
London, WC2R 2LS
United Kingdom

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