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Valid ID and RSVP required. RSVP here or email Anam Salem.

Lunch will be provided.

About the Talk

China’s official human rights discourse tends to prioritize economic and social rights, as well as the right to development, over civil and political rights. Originally, in the 1990s and 2000s, this prioritization was deployed against western criticism of China’s human rights record. However, over time, it has evolved into a mantra in White Papers, National Action Plans, UN treaty body and UPR reports, as well as in China’s responses to the annual State Department report on human rights. The speaker examines the extent to which this rhetoric has come to influence human rights practice, both domestically in China and internationally. He asks whether the rhetoric in fact has led to changes and policies at the domestic level, and whether China’s discourse has played a role in explaining the growing attention for economic and social rights at the international level.

About the Speaker

Dr. Wim Muller is a Lecturer in Public International Law at Maastricht University (Netherlands) and Associate Fellow, International Law Programme, Royal Institute of International Affairs at Chatham House (London, UK). He is a Doctor of Laws of the European University Institute (Florence, Italy) and holds degrees in history and law from Leiden University (Netherlands) and worked at the universities of Leiden, Amsterdam in the Netherlands and Essex and Manchester in the UK. Dr Muller’s general research interests are in general public international law and the relationship between international law and society. He has a particular interest in human rights, international humanitarian law, international criminal law, the law on peace and security and the practice of international law in East Asia. He has been a visiting researcher at Renmin University (Beijing, China) and is involved in the Chatham House project on China and the international legal order in collaboration China University of Political Science and Law (also in Beijing).