China and the International Human Rights Regime: 1982-2017

March 30, 2022  |  12:15-1:30 PM
Robert L. Patton Hall, RLP 1.302B

On Wednesday, March 30, The Asia Policy Program is partnering with the Center for East Asian Studies to host Rana Siu Inboden, adjunct assistant professor at the LBJ School of Public Affairs and Asia Policy Program faculty affiliate, to discuss her first book China and the International Human Rights Regime. This talk will be moderated by Sheena Chestnut Greitens, director of the Asia Policy Program and associate professor at the LBJ School of Public Affairs, at Robert L. Patton Hall, RLP 1.302B. The Asia Policy Program is a joint effort of the Clements Center for National Security and the Strauss Center for International Security and Law.   

Rana Siu Inboden examines China’s role in the international human rights regime between 1982 and 2017 and, through this lens, explores China’s rising position in the world. Focusing on three major case studies – the drafting and adoption of the Convention against Torture and the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture, the establishment of the UN Human Rights Council, and the International Labour Organization’s Conference Committee on the Application of Standards – Inboden shows China’s subtle yet persistent efforts to constrain the international human rights regime. Based on a range of documentary and archival research, as well as extensive interview data, Inboden provides fresh insights into the motivations and influences driving China’s conduct and explores China’s rising position as a global power.

Registration required. 

BIOGRAPHY

Dr. Rana Siu Inboden is a Senior Fellow with the Robert Strauss Center for International Security and Law at the University of Texas-Austin. She serves as a consultant on human rights, democracy and rule of law projects in Asia for a number of non-governmental organizations and conducts research related to international human rights, Chinese foreign policy, the effectiveness of international human rights and democracy projects and authoritarian collaboration in the United Nations. Her first book, China and the International Human Rights Regime (Cambridge, 2021) examines China’s role in the international human rights regime between 1982 and 2017.

Previously, Dr. Inboden served in the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor where her primary responsibilities included managing the State Department’s Human Rights and Democracy Fund China program and promoting U.S. human rights and democracy policy in China and North Korea. She also served at the U.S. Consulate in Shanghai, in the Office of Chinese and Mongolian Affairs, and in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research where she covered U.S.-China relations.

Dr. Inboden holds a D.Phil from the Department of Politics and International Relations at Oxford University. She obtained an M.A. at Stanford University in East Asian Studies and a B.S. at the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. She was awarded a U.S. State Department Superior Honor Award for her work in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor.