Eva Pils. China’s Human Rights Lawyers: Advocacy and Resistance. London, U.K.: Routledge, 2014.
This book provides a powerful analysis of the role of human rights lawyers operating within an authoritarian legal regime, focusing on China. Eva Pils documents how lawyers advocating for victims of injustice face systemic repression, including harassment, professional marginalization, and state violence. In the absence of organized political opposition, these attorneys have emerged as de facto political actors, leveraging legal strategies to challenge state authority and articulate demands for reform. Their resistance reveals the potential—and limitations—of legal advocacy in environments where law is used more to entrench authoritarianism than to deliver justice. The book also examines how lawyers’ localized struggles interface with international norms and transnational rule of law promotion, offering broader insights into the role of attorneys in autocratizing or backsliding contexts.