The Crackdown on the Chinese Legal Profession

The Stanford University Center for East Asian Studies will host a panel examining the implications on the crackdown for the Chinese legal profession.

China’s current nationwide crackdown on “rights defense” (weiquan) lawyers is the strongest assault to date on a small number of pioneers who have struggled to advance the rule of law. Lawyers, activists and ordinary citizens who assert legal rights against agencies and officials now risk suppression in the name of ”stability maintenance.” The crackdown increases uncertainty about the future of law reform in China.

This panel will examine the implications on the crackdown for the Chinese legal profession.

Panelists will include:

Hou Ping, the Vice President and Founder of LesGo, a nonprofit organization working on LGBT rights in China. LesGo advocates for recognition of and equality for the LGBT community in Suzhou and surrounding areas.

Stanley Lubman, a long-time specialist on Chinese law, Distinguished Lecturer in Residence (ret.) at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law. He is the author of “Bird in a Cage: Legal Reform in China After Mao” (Stanford University Press, 1999) and editor of “The Evolution of Law Reform in China: An Uncertain Path” (Elgar, 2012).

This event is co-sponsored by the Stanford Center on the Legal Profession, the Center for East Asian Studies and the John and Terry Levin Center for Public Service and Public Interest Law. Lunch will be provided.