I. Basic Information

Sun Shiyan is a research fellow andhead of the Research Department of International Human Rights Law of CASS Institute of International Law and a professor at the Graduate School of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

He obtained his LL.B and LL.M from Jilin University School of Law in 1991 and 1994, respectively, and a Ph.D. from the Graduate School of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in 1999. He was an assistant professor, lecturer and associate professor at Jilin University School of Law from 1994 to 2003 and a researcher at the Centre for Jurisprudence Research of Jilin University from 2000 to 2003. He was a visiting professor at the Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, Lund University, from 2003 to 2004. He started to work at the (then) Centre for International Law Studies of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in April 2004 as an associate research fellow and the head of the Research Department of Public International Law. He became a full research fellow in 2012 and transferred to the Research Department of International Human Rights Law in 2016 as the acting head (2016-2018) and the head (2018) of the Department.

He was a visiting scholar at the Netherlands Institute of Human Rights, Utrecht University; Columbia University School of Law, USA; Norwegian Institute of Human Rights, University of Oslo; University of Toronto Law School, Canada; and the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House), UK and other academic institutions.

He is a member of the Chinese Society of International Law and the Chinese Society for Human Rights Studies. He serves as deputy editor-in-chief of Chinese Review of International Law, and a member of the editorial board of Chinese Yearbook of International Law, Chinese Journal of International Law and International Review of the Red Cross.

II. Main Academic Ideas and Viewpoints

His main research area is international human rights law. He has published more than 30 articles in Chinese, 5 articles in English, many books as authors, editor-in-chief or translators.

His work mainly focuses on the following topics.

1. Obligations of States imposed by international human rights law. His article “On the Obligations of the State under International Human Rights Law” was the first research done by Chinese scholars on the obligations of the State under international human rights law, suggesting that international human rights law impose four obligations upon States, namely, to recognize, respect, fulfill and promote, and protect human rights. “The Extraterritorial Application of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights” analyzes the extraterritorial obligations of States parties to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) based on the practice of the Human Rights Committee. “The Continuing Applicability of International Human Rights Treaties” studies the issues of denunciation and succession of international human rights treaties and the special issues regarding the applicability of the two Human Rights Covenants to Hong Kong SAR and Macao SAR. The book The Obligations of State Parties under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights published in 2012 comprehensively explores the forms, nature, scope and domestic implementation of the obligations of States Parties under the ICCPR.

2. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. In addition to the study of the obligations of States parties under the ICCPR, he also published many articles on the same Covenant, including “The Understanding and Interpretation of ICCPR in the Context of China’s Ratification”, Chinese Journal of International Law, 1 (2007); “The Universality and Relativity of Human Rights – from the Perspective of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights”; “The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and Domestic Legal System – Some Preliminary Observations”; “The First Instance Jurisdiction of the Supreme People’s Court over Criminal Cases: from the Perspective of Article 14 (5) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights”. In this respect, the most noteworthy work is about the Chinese text(s) of the ICCPR, on which he published “International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights: One Covenant, Two Chinese Texts?”, Nordic Journal of International Law, 2 (2006) and its corresponding version in Chinese. With respect to an article implying that China should be responsible for the emergence of the unauthentic Chinese texts of the two Human Rights Covenants, he responded with “The Problems of the Chinese Texts of the International Human Rights Covenants: A Revisit”, Chinese Journal of International Law, 4 (2016) and its corresponding version in Chinese published on Taiwan Human Rights Journal.

3. Death penalty. His work on the issue of death penalty from the perspective of international human rights law includes: “‘The Most Serious Crimes’ and Death Penalty – The Definition of Death Penalty in International Law”; “The International Trend towards the Abolition of the Death Penalty: Viewed from the Reports of the United Nations Secretary-General”; “The Publicity of the Information on the Death Penalty: The Requirements of the United Nations and Responses of China”; and “Countries with Large Populations and the Death Penalty: Viewed from the Reports of the United Nations Secretary-General”, in which he showed that, while most countries with large populations have not abolished the death penalty, they are nevertheless not “big countries in terms of the death penalty” with respect to the frequency of executions, the rate of execution or the number of the persons executed.

4. Human rights education. He was one of the earliest Chinese scholars to study the issues of human rights education, especially the teaching of human rights law in universities. In this respect, he published “A Preliminary Observation of Human Rights Law Teaching at Chinese Universities” and “Human Rights Education and Research in China: The Contribution of the Raoul Wallenberg Institute” in Jonas Grimheden and Rolf Ring, eds., Human Rights Law: From Dissemination to Application-Essays in Honor of Göran Melander, Martinus Nijhoff, 2006; co-edited Selected Cases of Human Rights with Professor Li Buyun and edited Human Rights Law Teaching at Chinese Universities: Problems and Prospects, which has been the only book in Chinese addressing the various aspects of teaching human rights law at Chinese universities.

5. Translation of human rights works. He co-translated Manfred Nowak's U. N. Covenant on Civil and Political Rights: CCPR Commentary, the first edition in 2003 and the revised edition in 2008, which has become one of the most frequently cited human rights books in China. He also translated and published David Kinley's Civilising Globalisation: Human Rights and the Global Economy, and Ben Saul, David Kinley and Jacqueline Mowbray's The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights: Commentary, Cases, and Materials.