Profile Picture of Prof. Dr. Eva Pils

Chair of Human Rights Law (Alexander von Humboldt Professorship)

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Schillerstraße 2991054 Erlangen

Room: 01.002, Floor: 01

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Eva Pils currently holds the Chair at FAU. She is also a member and part of the collegiate directorship team of the FAU Centre for Human Rights Erlangen Nuremberg. 

Eva studied law, philosophy and sinology in Heidelberg, London and Beijing and holds a PhD in law from University College London. Before joining FAU in 2024, Eva held tenured positions at the Chinese University of Hong Kong Faculty of Law (2007-2014) and at King’s College London(2014-2024), where she was appointed Professor of Law in 2018. 

She is also an affiliated scholar at the US-Asia Law Institute of New York University Law School (since 2012), an Affiliate with the King’s College London Lau China Institute and Transnational Law Institute (since 2014) and a Visiting Professor at Queen Mary University of London School of Law (since 2024). She has held positions as a Visiting Scholar at Institut d’Études Avanceés de Paris and European Institute for Chinese Studies (EURICS)/IEAP; as a Visiting Professor of Law at Columbia Law School; as an External Fellow at the Bingham Centre for the Rule of Law; and as Directrice d’étudesat École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris.

Professor Pils’ scholarship addresses autocratic conceptions and practices of governance, legal and political resistance, transnational repression, and modes of complicity with autocratic wrongs. She has previously worked on human rights defence in China in a variety of contexts, including criminal justice, land and housing rights, freedom of expression and association, and wider issues of access to justice.

Within the framework of her AvH professorship, she will be directing projects to investigate the impacts of global autocratisation on the protection and defence of human rights, as well as human rights’ role in democratic resilience and resistance, drawing on the methodologies and insights of diverse academic disciplines and legal-political settings.

In the Winter Term 2025/26, Eva Pils is (co-)teaching the module Philosophical Foundations of Human Rights with Professor Heiner Bielefeldt for the students on the interdisciplinary FAU MA Human Rights program.

For the current semester, the MA in Human Rights curriculum features t. Additionally, she will co-teach the Human Rights Law course with Dr. Grazyna Baranowska and Prof. Dr. Markus Krajewski. For students of the Law Department (Specialisation SPB 11), an Advanced Seminar on Autokratisierung und Völkerrecht (Autocratization and International Law) is also being offered.

Looking ahead to the second semester, the MA programme is expected to include the courses Nondiscrimination with Dr. Tainá Garcia Maia and Autocracy, Democracy and Human Rights, co-led by Omri Levin.

Selected Publications

Monographs

Co-edited Books

Journal Articles

  • With Ralph Weber, 2025 «Menschenrechte mit chinesischen Eigenschaften»: Narrativ oder Propaganda?,’ in Christoph Spenlé and Carl Jauslin, Menschenrechtsnarrative – Der Kampf um die Deutungshoheit, special issue of Global Europe – Basel Papers on Europe in a Global Perspective,.
  • With Ralph Weber. 2024. ‘Die Debatte Über Deutschlands Umgang Mit China: Versuch Einer Einordnung / The Debate about Germany’s Interactions with China: an Attempt at Systematic Assessment,’  Berliner Zeitschrift für Sozialwissenschaft 52(3):327-350. DOI:10.5771/0340-0425-2024-3-327
  • With Christelle Genoud. 2023. ‘Universities’ responsibilities to respect and protect human rights transnationally: A critical discussion of UK universities’ collaboration and exchange with China.’ Global Campus Human Rights Journal 7 (2), 1-18. http://doi.org/10.25330/2666

Book chapters 

  • ‘Contending ‘Illiberalisms in China,’ chapter in Marlène Laruelle, ‘The Oxford Handbook of Illiberalism,’ OUP. Pils, Eva (2024). ‘Contending Illiberalisms in China,’ The Oxford Handbook of Illiberalism. Laruelle, M. (ed.). Oxford University Press (OUP)
  • ‘Transnational Advocacy against China’s Atrocities in Xinjiang’. In Barrow, Amy and Sara Fuller, Activism and Authoritarian Governance in Asia. Routledge, September 2022. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003243106-11.
  • ‘China and the threat to global academic freedom,’ in Vanessa Frangville, Aude Merlin, Jihane Sfeir, Pierre-Etienne Vandamme, La liberté académique dans tous ses états : enjeux et menaces, Presses Universitaires de Bruxelles, 2021, 155-162.
  • ‘Rule of law reform and the rise of rule by fear,’ chapter 3 in Fu Hualing, Chen Weitseng (editors), Authoritarian Legality in Asia, Cambridge University Press, 2020, 90-113.
  • ‘Legal advocacy as liberal resistance,’ chapter 2 in Teresa Wright (editor), Handbook of Dissent and Protest in China, Edward Elgar Publishing, August 2019, 62-74.
  • ‘Human rights and the political system’, chapter 3 in Sarah Biddulph and Joshua Rosenzweig (editors), Handbook on Human Rights in China, Edward Elgar Publishing, July 2019, 32-59.
  • ‘The Party and the Law,’ in Willy Lam (editor), Handbook on the Chinese Communist Party (Routledge, Abingdon: 2018), 248-265.
  • ‘Justice, wrongs and rights: understanding traditional and liberal conceptions of justice through the lens of contemporary Chinese advocacy initiatives,’ in Elisa Nesossi, Flora Sapio and Susan Trevaskes (editors), Justice: the China Experience, Cambridge University Press, 2017, pp. 229-256.
  • ‘Voice, reflexivity and say: governing access to land in China,’ in Olivier De Schutter and Katharina Pistor, Governing Access to Essential Resources, Columbia University Press, December 2015, pp. 127-155, http://cupola.columbia.edu/governing-access-to-essential-resources/.
  • ‘Contending conceptions of ownership in urbanizing China,’ in Fu Hualing and John Gillespie (eds.), Resolving Land Disputes in East Asia, Cambridge University Press, December 2014, pp. 115-172.
  • ‘“Disappearing” China’s Human Rights Lawyers,’ in Mike McConville and Eva Pils (editors), Comparative Perspectives on Criminal Justice in China, Edward Elgar Publishing, 2013, pp. 411-438.
  • ‘The dislocation of the Chinese Human Rights Movement,’ in Stanley Lubman (editor), The Evolution of Law Reform in China, Edward Elgar Publishing, 2012; originally published in Stacy Mosher and Patrick Poon (editors) A Sword and a Shield: China’s Human Rights Lawyers; (China Human Rights Lawyers Concern Group: Hong Kong, 2009), pp. 141-159.
  • ‘Charter 08 and Violent Resistance: the Dark Side of the Chinese Weiquan Movement,’ in Jean-Philippe Béja, Fu Hualing and Eva Pils (editors), Liu Xiaobo, Charter 08 and the Challenges of Political Reform in China, Hong Kong University Press, 2012, pp. 229-250.
  • ‘The practice of law as conscientious resistance: Chinese Weiquan Lawyers’ Experience’, in Jean-Philippe Béja (editor), The Impact of China’s 1989 Tiananmen Massacre, Routledge, 2011, pp. 109-124.
  • ‘Rights Activism in China: the Case of Lawyer Gao Zhisheng,’ in Stephanie Balme and Michael C. Dowdle (eds.), Building Constitutionalism in China (New York: 2009), Routledge, pp. 243-260.
  • ‘Peasants’ Struggle for Land in China’, in Yash Ghai and Jill Cottrell (eds.), Marginalized Communities and Access to Justice, Routledge, 2009, pp. 136-160.
  • ‘Citizens? The Legal and Political Status of Peasants and Peasant Migrant Workers in China,’ in Liu Xiangmin (editor), Zhidu, fazhan yu hexie / 制度，发展与和谐 [System, Development, and Harmony] (Ming Pao Press, Hong Kong: 2007), 173-243; draft available at http://ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1563724.

Translated Book Chapters

  • Teng Biao, ‘The Political Meaning of the Crime of “Subverting State Power”,’ translated from the Chinese by Pinky Choy and Eva Pils, in Jean-Philippe Béja, Fu Hualing and Eva Pils, Charter 08 and Challenges to Constitutionalism in China, Hong Kong University Press.
  • Cui Weiping, ‘Breaking Through a Wall of Political Isolation and Discrimination,’ translated from the Chinese by Pinky Choy and Eva Pils, in Jean-Philippe Béja, Fu Hualing and Eva Pils, Charter 08 and Challenges to Constitutionalism in China, Hong Kong University Press.

Edited Journal issues (from 2010 on)

  • With Marina Svensson, ‘Yu Jianrong: From Concerned Scholar to Advocate for the Marginalized,’ Contemporary Chinese Thought, vol. 46, no. 1, Fall 2014, 90 pages, with editors’ ‘Introduction’ (pp. 1-16).
  • With Marina Svensson, ‘From Nonperson to Public Intellectual: the Life and Works of Yu Jianrong,’ Contemporary Chinese Thought, vol. 45, no. 4, Summer 2014, published October 2014, 88 pages, with editors’ ‘Introduction’ (pp. 1-17).
  • Locating civil society: communities that defend basic liberties, a special issue of China Perspectives, guest-edited with French Centre for Research on Contemporary China, 2012 vol.3, September 2012.

Non-refereed Publications (2010 onwards)

  • With Zeng Jinyan (艾华 / 曾金燕). 2023. 抗议的伦理:从非暴力运动、非文明抗争到#MeToo运动 [The Ethics of Protest: From Nonviolent Movement, Uncivil Resistance to #MeToo Movement]. 中国民主季刊 / China Journal of Democracy, 44-55. Available at https://chinademocrats.org/?p=1953.
  • ‘Hope without evidence: reading Sikkink’s Evidence for Hope in China,’ King’s Law Journal, 5 November 2020.

Other Contributions

The exhaustive list can be downloaded here.

https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/en/persons/eva.pils