Program Spotlights

The Zhejiang University (ZJU) Research Center of Human Rights originated from the Zhejiang University Public Law Research Center, established in 2005. To thoroughly implement the spirit of general secretary Xi Jinping’s important expositions on respecting and protecting human rights, contribute the overall development of the national human rights, and adapt to changes in the domestic and international landscape as well as the needs of disciplinary development, the Center was officially renamed the Zhejiang University Research Center of Human Rights in December 2023, with university approval.

Leveraging Zhejiang Province’s strategic advantage as a demonstration zone for high-quality development and common prosperity, and Relying on the disciplinary ecosystem of Zhejiang University as a comprehensive university, the Center takes the construction of an autonomous human rights knowledge system with Chinese characteristics as its core task. It is committed to becoming an internationally renowned academic research platform for human rights law, a highland for talent cultivation, and a high-end think tank that relies on Zhejiang University, is based in the Yangtze River Delta, serves the entire nation, and faces the world.

The Center has established a pattern of multidisciplinary collaborative development, with legal research as the mainstay, encompassing fields such as Marxism, public administration, economics, philosophy, media, and history. On one hand, relying on dominant disciplines like Jurisprudence and Public Law, the Center has built a powerful and influential research team. It has gathered experts with profound academic attainments in human rights law, including Sun Xiaoxia, Liang Zhiping, Wang Minyuan, Hu Ming, Yu Jun, Cheng Le, and Wang Linghao. Significant achievements have been made in areas such as human rights philosophy, basic theories, new argumentation methods, and human rights protection practices amidst social changes. On the other hand, the Center actively conducts interdisciplinary research covering international human rights, democracy and human rights, human rights diplomacy, human rights and economy, environmental rights, immigration law, rights of children, women, and consumers, property rights, human rights in public participation, democratic politics, as well as personal information, digital identity, and data trading.Relying on a research team with broad professional backgrounds and a balanced structure, the Center has achieved remarkable results and exerted significant influence in human rights theoretical research, innovation of discourse systems, policy counseling, and international exchange.

The Center focuses on three key strategic directions: the construction of an autonomous human rights knowledge system, digital human rights research, and the international communication of human rights theories.For Autonomous Knowledge System of Human Rights, based on the theoretical perspective of integrating the Marxist view of human rights with China’s concrete practices and fine traditional culture, the Center explores the ideological origins and theoretical characteristics of human rights. It aims to distill original human rights concepts and theoretical frameworks based on China’s practical experience, providing theoretical support for constructing the disciplinary, academic, and discourse systems of human rights with Chinese characteristics. For Digital Human Rights, focusing on the paradigm shift of new rights in the digital age, the Center deeply analyzes specific issues and challenges like the digital divide and algorithmic discrimination. It systematically elucidates the connotations and normative structures of digital human rights, building a multidimensional protection framework covering digital political rights, digital economic rights, and rights to digital culture and social development. For International Communication, relying on high-end platforms like international human rights seminars, the Center deeply deconstructs the structural defects of Western-centric human rights models. It seeks to establish long-term mechanisms for academic exchange and mutual learning, striving to enhance the international discourse power and influence of Chinese human rights theories, contributing wisdom and solutions to a fair, reasonable, inclusive, and beneficial global human rights governance system.