< People

PROF. RYAN MITCHELL 穆秋瑞教授
Associate Professor 副教授

Tel    

Fax

Email

Office

(852) 3943 4425

(852) 2994 2505

ryan.mitchell@cuhk.edu.hk

Room 532
Faculty of Law
5/F, Lee Shau Kee Building
The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Sha Tin, NT, Hong Kong SAR

Ryan Martínez Mitchell‘s research focuses on public international law, comparative law, legal history, Chinese law, and Asian legal systems. His work has been published in leading academic journals, including the Harvard International Law Journal, the Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law, the Asian Journal of International Law, International & Comparative Law Quarterly, and the Georgetown Journal of International Law, among others. His analysis of these topics has also appeared in Foreign Affairs, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, The National Interest, NPR, Bloomberg, Nikkei Asia, Al Jazeera, Foreign Policy, and other major media outlets.

In much of his work, Professor Mitchell explores understandings of state sovereignty in both international legal and domestic constitutional contexts. He has particularly focused on the historical and comparative study of ideas and practices of state authority and responsibility. His monograph Recentering the World: China and the Transformation of International Law (Cambridge University Press, 2022), is a detailed account of Chinese discourses regarding and impacts upon international law based on extensive work with diplomatic and other archival sources in several languages. His current projects involve the comparative study of Global South experiences and agendas in international law, including those related to customary norms regarding the enforcement of international law, economic statecraft, and sustainable development.

Alongside his training as a legal scholar, Mitchell conducted extensive coursework and research training on the history and society of modern China. He holds a B.A. in Social and Historical Inquiry from The New School’s Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts, a J.D. from Harvard Law School, where he was also a Cravath International Fellow and an Irving R. Kaufman Public Interest Fellow, and a Ph.D. in Law from Yale University, where he was also an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Humanities Fellow and obtained the Archaia interdisciplinary qualification in the study of premodern societies. He is a member of the State Bar of California and has experience in litigation related to international human rights law within the United States federal court system. He is currently a Non-Resident Fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.

EDUCATIONAL AND PROFESSIONAL QUALIFICATIONS

  • PhD (Yale) (with distinction)
  • Archaia Qualification in the Study of Ancient and Premodern Cultures and Societies (Yale)
  • JD (Harvard)
  • BA (New School) (Dean’s List)
  • Admitted to Practice, State Bar of California

RESEARCH INTERESTS

  • Public international law
  • Chinese law / Asian legal systems
  • Legal history
  • Comparative Constitutional law
  • Law and Political Economy

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

Monographs

  • Recentering the World: China and the Transformation of International Law (Cambridge University Press, 2022)

Academic Journal Articles

  • “Sino-American Sanctions Convergence?,” 7 Cardozo International & Comparative Law Review 741 (2024)
  • “Carl Schmitt and Ossip Flechtheim at Nuremberg: A Crossroads for International Justice and Intellectual History,” German Law Journal (2024) (with Gregory Gordon)
  • “Neutral Rights and Collective Countermeasures for Erga Omnes Violations,” 72 International & Comparative Law Quarterly 361 (2023) (with Chin Leng Lim)
  • “The Emerging Chinese Model of Statist Human Rights,” 37 American University International Law Review 617 (2023)
  • “The Human Community of Fate: A Conceptual History of China’s Ordoglobal Idea,” 13 Humanity: An International Journal of Human Rights, Humanitarianism, and Development 175 (Summer 2022)
  • “Monroe’s Shadow: League of Nations Covenant Article 21 and the Space of Asia in International Legal Order,” 2 TWAIL Review 200 (2021)
  • “China’s Participation in the Second Hague Conference and the Concept of Equal Sovereignty in International Law,” 11 Asian Journal of International Law 351 (2021)
  • “Chinese Receptions of Carl Schmitt Since 1929,” 8 Penn State Journal of Law and International Affairs 181 (2020)
  • “A ‘Guardian Controversy’ Over Hong Kong’s Basic Law?,” 50 Hong Kong Law Journal 463 (2020)
  • “International Law as Project or System?,” 51 Georgetown International Law Journal 623 (2020)
  • “Jean Bodin’s Law of Nations,” 21 Political Theology 550 (2020)
  • “Hegemony in a Multipolar World Order: Global Constitutionalism and the Großraum,” 1 Jus Cogens 129 (2019)
  • “China and the Political Myth of ‘Brainwashing,’” 4 Made in China Journal, 48 (2019)
  • “International Law as a Coercive Order: Hans Kelsen and the Transformations of Sanction,” 29 Indiana International & Comparative Law Review 245 (2019)
  • “Sovereignty and Normative Conflict: Reframing International Legal Realism as a Theory of Uncertainty,” 58 Harvard International Law Journal 421 (2018)
  • “Manchukuo’s Contested Sovereignty: Legal Activism, Rights Consciousness, and Civil Resistance in a ‘Puppet State,’” 3 Asian Journal of Law and Society 351 (2016)
  • “An International Commission of Inquiry for the South China Sea?: Defining the Law of Sovereignty to Determine the Chance for Peace,” 49 Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law 749 (2016)
  • “Redefining Pragmatic Engagement: The ‘New Model’ of U.S.-China Relations and the Opportunity of Shared Consequences,” 23 International Affairs Review 105 (2015)
  • “Surveillance State 2.0: Beta-Tested in China, Coming Soon to…?,” Yale Journal of Law & Technology Online (2013) (with Can Sun)

Chapters in Edited Volumes

  • “The Republic of China and the League of Nations” in Cai Congyan, Ignacio de la Rasilla, and Wang Jiangyu, eds., Histories of International Law in China: All Under Heaven? (Oxford University Press, forthcoming 2025)
  • “How China Came to Embrace International Institutions” in Raluca Grosescu and Ned Richardson-Little, eds., Socialisms and International Law (Oxford University Press, forthcoming 2025)
  • “Marxist Legal Thought” in Albert Hung-yee Chen and Yu Xingzhong, eds., Research Handbook on Chinese Legal Thought (Edward Elgar, forthcoming 2025)
  • “Confucian Legal Thought” in John Linarelli, ed., Elgar Concise Encyclopedia of Legal Theory and Philosophy (Edward Elgar, forthcoming 2025)
  • “Constitutional Amendments in the People’s Republic of China” in Bui Ngoc Son and Mara Malagodi, eds., Asian Constitutional Law, Volume II: Constitution Making (Hart Publishing, forthcoming 2024)
  • “Domestic Law as Critique of International Law: The Case of China’s SDG Authoritarianism” in Helmut Philipp Aust, Heike Krieger, and Felix Lange, eds., Research Handbook on International Law and Domestic Legal Systems (Edward Elgar, forthcoming 2024)
  • “Constitutional Projects in Modern Chinese History” in Bui Ngoc Son, Stuart Hargreaves, and Ryan Mitchell, eds., Handbook on the Constitutional Law of Greater China (Routledge, 2022)
  • “Theories of Sovereignty in the Origins and Implementation of Hong Kong’s National Security Law” in Hualing Fu and Michael Hor, eds., The National Security Law of Hong Kong: Restoration and Transformation (Hong Kong University Press, 2022)
  • “‘State Form’ in the Theory and Practice of Constitutional Change in Modern China” in Rehan Abeyratne and Bui Ngoc Son, eds., The Law and Politics of Unconstitutional Constitutional Amendments in Asia (Routledge, 2021)
  • “Myanmar and the Hegemonic Discourse of International Criminal Law” in Morten Bergsmo and Wolfgang Kaleck, eds., Colonial Wrongs, Double Standards, and Access to International Law (Brussels: Torkel Opsahl Academic EPublisher, 2020)
  • “The Chinese Interpretation of Sovereignty and Its Human Rights Implications” in David Ismangil, Karen van der Schaaf, and Stijn Deklerck, eds., Shifting Power and Human Rights Diplomacy – China (Amnesty International Netherlands, 2020)

Books Edited

  • Handbook on the Constitutional Law of Greater China (co-editor with Bui Ngoc Son and Stuart Hargreaves) (Routledge, 2022)

Book Reviews

  • “A Certain Justice: Toward an Ecology of the Chinese Legal Imagination,” The China Journal (2024)
  • “Plato Goes to China: The Greek Classics and Chinese Nationalism,” 54 Asian Affairs 4 (2023)
  • “Just Hierarchy: Why Social Hierarchies Matter in China and the Rest of the World,” The Review of Politics (2021)
  • “Is International Law International?,” 81 Modern Law Review 3 (2018)
  • “The China Model: Political Meritocracy and the Limits of Democracy,” The Marx & Philosophy Review of Books (November 2015)
  • “Bloody Harvest,” 24 Harvard Human Rights Journal 246 (2011)

Academic Blogs and Popular Publications

  • “Recentering the World: An Interview with Ryan Martinez Mitchell: Part II,” Journal of the History of Ideas Blog, April 9, 2023
  • “Recentering the World: An Interview with Ryan Martinez Mitchell: Part I,” Journal of the History of Ideas Blog, April 5, 2023
  • “What the US and its allies get wrong about Chinese neutrality,” Responsible Statecraft, April 4, 2023
  • “Why pressuring neutral states to sanction Russia could backfire,” Responsible Statecraft, April 9, 2022
  • “How Global Capitalism Became Humanity’s ‘Fate’ in Xi Jinping’s New Era,” Global China Pulse, Volume 1, Issue 1 (2022)
  • “Global Capitalism, International Law, and Chinese Sovereignty,” Legal Form, January 31, 2022
  • “Schmitt in Beijing,” Critical Legal Thinking, October 18, 2021
  • “Towards an ‘Asian Faction’ in International Law?: On Third Worldism and Contingent Eurocentrism Since the Second Hague Conference of 1907,” Harvard International Law Journal Online (2021)
  • “The Korean War and the Ontology of Intervention: Chen Tiqiang’s Who Is Undermining International Law?,” Legal Form, March 5, 2019
  • “With China on the Moon,” ChinaFile Conversation, January 11, 2019
  • “A Hegelian Logic Underlying Contemporary Conservative Populisms?,” Critical Legal Thinking, January 2, 2019
  • “Was the UN Human Rights Council Wrong to Back China’s ‘Shared Future’ Resolution?,” EJIL: Talk!, April 10, 2018
  • “China’s Crown Theorist,” Foreign Affairs, December 4, 2017
  • “Why Taiwan and China Agree on South China Sea Sovereignty,” The Diplomat, March 29, 2016
  • “Is There a China Model?”, ChinaFile Conversation, October 19, 2015
  • “Should the U.S. Extradite Chinese Wanted by Beijing?”, ChinaFile Conversation, August 5, 2015

RESEARCH GRANTS AND FUNDING

  • “Reassessing the Role of Economic Sanctions in the Enforcement of International Law.” September 2024-March 2027. Hong Kong Research Grants Council. Sole Investigator (PI)
  • Invited visit to The University of Sydney, Australia, October 2024, Chinese University of Hong Kong Internationalisation Faculty Mobility Scheme
  • Principal Investigator, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Faculty of Law Direct Grant 2023, “China in the Realist Imagination,” May 2023 – April 2024
  • Principal Investigator, General Research Fund 2019/20, “The Development and Influence of Chinese Theories of Sovereignty,” January 2020 – June 2023
  • Principal Investigator, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Faculty of Law Direct Grant 2019, “Post-Imperial Dialogues: Evaluating Connections Between Early 20th Century German Public Law Theory and Chinese Legal Discourse,” June 2019 – June 2020

AWARDS AND FELLOWSHIPS

  • Research Excellence Award 2022-2023, Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2023
  • Award for “Best Research in Progress on East Asian Law and Society,” American Association of Law Schools, Section on East Asian Law and Society, January 2016
  • Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Humanities Fellowship 2014-2017
  • Harvard Law School Kaufman Public Interest Fellowship 2012-13
  • Cravath International Fellowship 2011

SELECTED CONFERENCE PAPERS AND PRESENTATIONS

  • “The Domestic Legal Implications of Applying Humanitarian Principles to Economic Sanctions.” (May 2024). Presentation at annual works-in-progress meeting of the Interest Group on International Law in Domestic Courts of the American Society of International Law, University of Chicago Law School, Chicago, IL
  • “Sanctions and Interdependence: Human Rights Implications.” (April 2024). Panel for Annual Meeting of the American Society of International Law, Washington, DC
  • “Recentering the World: China and the Transformation of International Law.” (November 2023). Invited presentation at Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz, Graz, Austria
  • “The Republic of China and the League of Nations.” (October 2023). Presented at the workshop on Histories of International Law in China: All Under Heaven?, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
  • “Contextualizing China’s Role in the Global Legal Order.” (October 2023). Presented at the annual meeting of the American Society for Legal History, Philadelphia, PA
  • “China Beyond its Borders and Global Governance.” (October 2023). Presented at International Law Weekend 2023, American Branch of the International Law Association, Fordham Law School, New York, NY
  • “Chinese Views on the Formation of the UN Charter.” (September 2023). Presented at 17th annual conference of the European China Law Studies Association, Helsinki, Finland
  • “International Law as a ‘Discourse Among Equals’: Changing Chinese Perceptions of the Fairness of Global Order and the Utility of Economic Coercion to Seek Redress.” (August 2023). Presented at the annual conference of the European Society for International Law, Interest Group on the History of International Law, Pre-Conference Workshop on Historical Perspectives on Fairness in International Law, Aix-en-Provence, Provence (hybrid event)
  • “Narrative Logics and the Problem of Authorship in International Legal History.” (June 2023). Presented at workshop on Historicization of International Law and its Limits. Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena and Sciences Po École de Droit, Jena and Dornburg, Germany
  • “Insights from Diplomatic Archival Research on China’s Role in International Legal History.” (May 2023). Invited presentation at Peking University School of Transnational Law, Shenzhen, China
  • “Constitutional Amendments in the People’s Republic of China.” (April 2023). Presented at Faculty of Law, Oxford University (hybrid event)
  • “Recentering the World: China and the Transformation of International Law.” (February 2023). Invited presentation at Hong Kong University (hybrid event)
  • “Recentering the World: China and the Transformation of International Law.” (December 2022). Invited presentation at Faculty of Law, Oxford University
  • “The Making of China’s 1982 Constitution.” (April 2022). Presented at Asian Comparative Constitutional Law Workshop. Oxford University and Chinese University of Hong Kong
  • “Domestic Law as Critique of International Law.” (March 2022). Presented at the workshop for the “Research Handbook on International Law and Domestic Legal Systems.” Part of KFG project “International Rule of Law: Rise or Decline?”; Humboldt University and Freie Universität Berlin
  • “What is World History?” (January 2022). Invited presentation at World History Roundtable, CUHK History Department. Chinese University of Hong Kong
  • “China and the Law of War as a Post-Cold War Project.” (July 2021). Presented at the Workshop on State Socialism and International Law, National School of Political and Administrative Studies, Bucharest, Romania, Erfurt University, and Executive Agency for Higher Education, Research, Development, and Innovation Funding, European Union
  • “Constitutional Projects in Modern Chinese History.” (July 2021). Presented at the Conference on Asian Legal History, Centre for Comparative and Transnational Law, Chinese University of Hong Kong, and Hue University, Vietnam
  • “Theories of Sovereignty in the Origins and Implementation of Hong Kong’s National Security Law.” (June 2021). Presented at Conference on Hong Kong Under China’s National Security Law. University of Hong Kong
  • “A Chinese Alternative to Sovereignty?: Revisiting the Qing Concept of ‘Stateliness.’” (March 2021). Invited lecture presented at the Julius Stone Institute of Jurisprudence, University of Sydney
  • “The Return of Reprisals?: The Fall and (Potential) Rise of Peacetime Coercion.” (October 2020). Presented at the ASIL Research Forum: Structure of International Law, 2020 ASIL Midyear Meeting
  • “Carl Schmitt and the Development of Conservative State Theory in China.” (October 2020). Presented at Greater China Legal History Seminar, Chinese University of Hong Kong Faculty of Law
  • “International Law as Project or System?” Presented at the Law and Society Association Annual Conference 2020
  • “International Law as Project or System?” (April 2020). Presented at the 2020 Michigan Law Junior Scholars Conference
  • “Receptions of Carl Schmitt in China Since 1929.” (December 2019). Presented at the 8th Asian Constitutional Law Forum. Vietnam National University, Hanoi
  • “Myanmar and the Hegemonic Discourse of International Criminal Law.” (November 2019). Presented at Conference on “Colonial Wrongs, Double Standards, and Access to International Law.” Centre for International Law Research and Policy (CILRAP). Yangon, Myanmar
  • “‘Absent Presence’ and Informal Hegemony: The League of Nations as a Project of Spatial Administration.” (July 2019). Paper presented at the conference on the League of Nations Decentred, University of Melbourne
  • “China’s ‘Community of Common Destiny’: A New World Order?” (May 2019). Paper Presented at the Institute of East Asian Studies, University of Cologne
  • “The Origins and Influence of China’s Developmentalist Conception of Human Rights.” (January 2019). Paper presented at the conference on Redistributive Human Rights?, University of New South Wales
  • “De-Universalized Hegemony in Carl Schmitt’s Großraumlehre: The Power to Characterize Spaces and Determine Norms,” (June, 2018). Paper presented at the conference on Hegemony in the International Order, University of Rome, Tor Vergata and the European Society of International Law (ESIL)
  • “Concrete Order Thinking for the Socialist Rechtsstaat: The Role of German Juristic Thought in China’s ‘New Era’ Constitutionalism,” (May, 2018).  Paper presented at the conference on Germany and the World, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
  • “International Criminal Law Categories in China,” (November, 2016). Paper presented at the conference on State Socialism, Legal Experts and the Genesis of International Criminal and Humanitarian Law after 1945, Humboldt University of Berlin
  • “Sovereignty and Uncertainty in Han Fei, Hobbes, and Schmitt,” (May, 2016). Paper presented at the East-West Philosopher’s Conference, University of Hawaii
  • “Legal Activism and Rights Consciousness in a ‘Puppet State’: Law in Manchukuo’s Civil Resistance, 1931-1945,” (January, 2016). Paper presented at the Association of American Law Schools (AALS) “Research in Progress on East Asian Law & Society” 2016 Session, New York