At a time when China's human rights lawyers are facing systematic repression, Eva Pils's illuminating book provides a timely and engaging account of their work, fears and aspirations. The study, based on extensive face-to-face conversations with weiquan lawyers in mainland China, makes an authoritative contribution to our understanding of the Chinese legal profession and of Chinese courts, which continue to operate under strict Party-state control. Pils explains precisely why and how weiquan lawyers contribute to the struggle for human rights and rule of law, and documents their perseverance in the face of a neo-totalitarian turn in China. Ample space is given to the lawyers’ own words, which are kept anonymous to comply with standards of research ethics, but also to ensure an analytical focus on the Chinese legal system rather than on the individual lawyer. Pils's unparalleled access, despite a restrictive and enormously challenging environment, as well as her effort to systematically record and analyse her interviewees’ experiences, are the main qualities that make this book outstanding. It is a milestone in the academic debate on legal advocacy and reform in contemporary China and sets a new standard for future empirical research on this topic.
Following a historical overview of legal advocacy in China, the book uses its core chapters to discuss the role of today's rights advocates in the Chinese socio-political system; the rules and practices of courtroom advocacy; how limitations on effective courtroom advocacy induce lawyers to divert their attention to advocacy outside the courtroom; the bureaucratic control of the legal profession; the relationship between weiquan lawyers and the Chinese security apparatus; and last but not least, their rationale for resisting Party-state control.
Pils observes that increasing Party-state repression has not stopped the growth of what had begun as a small circle of weiquan lawyers. Having spoken to many more than the few most famous human rights lawyers in China, Pils was able to confirm that the initial, close-knit group has managed to integrate more lawyers and to deepen contacts within their network over time. She also documents that they have begun to express their demands collectively. This mobilization was not facilitated, as is sometimes argued, by a common religious faith or common personal histories; rather, according to Pils, it was made possible by shared convictions about intrinsic individual rights. Pils also claims – albeit only with anecdotal evidence – that weiquan lawyering has increasingly drawn appreciation from Chinese society. Despite these successes, the lawyers’ accounts clearly demonstrate that weiquan lawyering is ridden with failures, both within and outside the courtroom. Pils does not downplay this reality; she also does not fall into the trap of portraying the lawyers as heroes. Through her in-depth interviews, she was able to look behind their public personae – and her study enables the reader to do so, too.
Another important contribution of Pils's study is its problematization and refutation of the notion that human rights lawyers are radical lawyers. Convincingly, Pils argues that the analytical category of “radical lawyer” merely perpetuates a repressive classification used by the security apparatus. Pils does not claim, and rightly so, that the experience of violent repression described in her book is common to all lawyers in China. At the same time, she asserts that Party-state control affects the entire legal profession in the country. In the courtroom, one important tactic of weiquan lawyers is that they act, to the extent possible, “as if” the Party did not control the courts; they also take legal advocacy outside the courtroom in situations where the legal process appears meaningless. Weiquan lawyers matter for China's legal system as a whole precisely because they adhere to public state law, defy tacit conventions and unconstitutional practices in court proceedings, persist in their work despite systematic Party-state terror and expose fear-mongering practices.
While it can be presumed that all Chinese lawyers are exposed to tacit conventions and unconstitutional practices in some form or another, Pils does not tell us how the large majority experience these constraints. The author's selection of her interlocutors was based on their self-identification as human rights lawyers, and as such, the study is limited to a particular sub-group. Nevertheless, Pils is correct to point out that her findings have broader implications. The experiences of Chinese human rights lawyers demonstrate the flaws of a legal system under strict party-state control, which is why the study ultimately dispels hope of a top-down, controlled and incremental rule-of-law reform in China.
Its title may appeal to NGO advocates, journalists and international policymakers that deal with China, but this book is not suitable for a quick-consumption audience. It will be appreciated by readers interested in a sophisticated, in-depth study of rights advocacy in China that discusses the strategies and challenges of weiquan lawyers in great detail without suggesting any easy answers. It is essential reading for scholars and graduate students specializing in legal reform and rights protection in China, as well as in legal advocacy in repressive environments more broadly. This book is also recommended for human rights lawyers in other authoritarian countries, who may find the Chinese experience instructive in their own work.
