At 10:00 on the morning of November 8, 2018, the 344thGlobal Human Rights Forum series was held at A209, Research Building, College Road Campus, China University of Political Science and Law. Professor Liu Huawen, Assistant Director of the Institute of International Law of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and Executive Director of the Center for Human Rights Studies of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, gave a wonderful lecture entitled "China’s Human Rights Concept and International Human Rights Discourse and Practice" to the students of Institute for Human Rights.
Professor Liu Huawen first reviewed the road to human rights development in China during the 40 years of reform and opening up. He showed the great human rights achievements of China in the past 40 years of reform and opening up through the Human Development Index.
Figure 1: Professor Liu Huawen is interpreting China Human Rights Plan
Professor Liu Huawen then introduced the human rights discourse in the new era through a series of related documents. He mentioned that the right to life and the right to development are the primary human rights; The principle of universality of human rights is combined with China’s national conditions when pursuing the level of human rights development which shouldn’t be set too high. And we must promote the cause of human rights in China with the holistic approach and methods of rule of law, development and human rights. In the international arena, our human rights concept is to promote development through cooperation, promote human rights through development, and build a new type of international relations and a community of human destiny. Faced with challenges such as foreign skepticism, China has always been a staunch defender and builder of the international rule of law. It must be recognized that China has no intention of turning over existing international human rights mechanisms, but is seeking for common grounds while reserving differences within the framework of the United Nations.
Then Professor Liu Huawen mentioned that students must have a clear categorization of the scope and the thinking of international law when analyze specific issues. We cannot simply discuss an international issue on the standpoint of domestic law and it’s a must to pay attention to the difference between international law and domestic law. In addition, with regard to the legal status of UN human rights instruments, we must make it clear that many international resolutions are international soft laws with only advocacy nature. The effectiveness of international law has always been the fundamental task of international law research. What’s more, Professor Liu mentioned that the United Nations human rights treaty on specific issues is legally binding on its contracting parties, and the State party is obliged to implement the relevant provisions of the treaty. He summarized the implementation mechanisms of human rights treaties by comparing several human rights treaties, such as the periodic reporting system of the State party, the inter-State accusation system and the individual communication system.
Finally, Professor Liu explained in detail the relevant knowledge of the UN Human Rights Council. He said that the Human Rights Council is an important body for the protection of human rights in the United Nations, and the Human Rights Council promotes the protection of human rights in all countries, mainly through the universal periodic review mechanism. Our country accepted the review of the universal periodic review mechanism in 2003 and 2009 respectively. On 6 November 2018, the Human Rights Council conducted a third review of the human rights situation in our country in accordance with the universal periodic review mechanism. During the period under review, representatives of various countries fully affirmed China's tremendous achievements in promoting and protecting human rights, and appreciated that China has made important contributions to the cause of human rights in the world while realizing its own development.
The lecture was successfully concluded with the enthusiastic applause of the students.
Written by HUANG Jiasheng