The Stability Imperative: Human Rights and Law in China

· UBC Press
Ebook
332
Pages

About this ebook

“Stability preservation” (weiwen) has long been an imperative of China’s one-party state. At the same time, China has recently embedded a commitment to the protection of human rights in its constitution. This book examines the multiple and shifting ways in which weiwen impinges on the implementation of human rights. Using case studies, Sarah Biddulph methodically examines the state’s response to labour unrest, medical disputes, and forced housing evictions. As she demonstrates, the state’s reaction can vary from taking steps to ameliorate the underlying causes of the citizens’ grievances to the repression of rights-related protests and the punishment of protestors. The Stability Imperative: Human Rights and Law in China reveals how the systematic failure of the legal system to protect rights coupled with an overemphasis on coercive forms of stability preservation is undermining the authority of law in China and could, ultimately, damage the Communist Party’s leadership.

About the author

Sarah Biddulph is an Australian Research Council Future Fellow and professor of law at the University of Melbourne Law School.

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