Panel Discussion: Nicholas Bequelin, Sarah Biddulph, Sue Trevaskes
2:00pm – 4:00pm， 25 Nov 2014
The Auditorium, China in the World Building (188), Fellows Lane, ANU, Canberra
The 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 serious 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.
Speakers:
Nicholas Bequelin, Senior China Researcher, Human Rights Watch
Sarah Biddulph, The University of Melbourne, Law School
Susan Trevaskes, Griffith University and The Australian Centre on China in the World (ANU)
For more information and registration, see here.