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NYU SCHOOL OF LAW
joan lebold cohen
impose harsh sentences whenever it desires. Amnesty International, In fact, his views carry weight with the Chinese legal establishin fact, calls China the world’s “top executioner,” estimating some ment. “Jerry is the guardian of the conscience of the intellectual,” 1,700 death penalty executions, though probably many more, each says Henry Chen (LL.M. ’03), a partner at MWE China Law Offices year. China classifies the exact number as a state secret. in Shanghai, pointing to Cohen’s criticisms of the China InternaCohen began working as a legal adviser on several key human tional Economic and Trade Arbitration Commission (CIETAC), rights cases in China. One of them involved Yongyi Song, a Dickin- China’s powerful international commercial arbitration body. In a son College librarian and China scholar researching the Cultural speech at a 2004 legal conference in Xiamen and a 2005 article for Revolution who was arrested by secret police in Beijing in August the Hong Kong–based Far Eastern Economic Review, Cohen—the 2000 and held in prison on charges of “purchasing intelligence and first foreigner to advocate before CIETAC in 1985—called out the exporting it to a foreign country.” (Song said he bought old newspa- commission for corruption, citing specific instances, and he said pers, books, and Red Guard wall posters from the late 1960s.) he’d advise clients to stay away from the commission, even though Working pro bono for Song’s wife and Dickinson College, Cohen he was one of only about 100 foreigners appointed as CIETAC ararranged for a Chinese lawyer to represent Song. Then, he mas- bitrators. Soon after, CIETAC adopted some of the reforms Cohen terminded a public relations suggested, but Cohen learned campaign, enlisting the suphe would not be reappointed to port of Senator Arlen Specter, the body. (At a 2007 arbitration as well as launching a peticonference in New York, Cohen tion calling for Song’s release, says, CIETAC’s new leader pubwhich garnered 176 signatures licly vowed Cohen would be refrom China scholars around appointed. “I am still waiting,” the world. Less than a month Cohen says.) after Cohen joined the case, Such retribution has been Song was released in January rare, and if he is worried about 2001. “If you see Jerry, please losing the right to travel, teach, tell him, ‘Thank you, again,’” says Song, now a research librarian at California State University in Los Angeles. a friend to many From top: Cohen visits Chinese More recently, though, “barefoot lawyer” Chen Guangcheng China has been less willing in his rural village home in 2003; to bend. Since 2005, Cohen Cohen and his former student Clark has crusaded for the release Randt Jr., then U.S. ambassador to of Chen Guangcheng, a blind China, socialize with their families at Randt’s Beijing residence in 2002. human rights defender placed under house arrest and then imprisoned after filing a lawsuit on behalf of thousands of Chinese women who unand speak in China, he isn’t derwent forced abortions and showing it. The Law School’s U.S.sterilizations. In 2003, Cohen Asia Law Institute, established in met Chen, known as a “bare2006 by Cohen and Upham, confoot lawyer” because he is selftinues to promote legal reform. taught in the law and provides With the help of senior research free legal counsel to peasants, fellows Margaret Lewis ’03 and and Cohen became an ardent Daniel Ping Yu, as well as others, champion of his work. After the institute has brought over meeting Chen through Cohen, Chinese judges, lawyers, prosChenguang Wang, Tsinghua ecutors, and academics to study Law School’s former dean, says he instituted a program for Tsing such hot-button issues as procedural safeguards in death penalty hua law students to spend their summers training other “barefoot appeals. Writing a twice-monthly column for the Hong Kong–based lawyers” in rural communities in China. South China Morning Post, Cohen also keeps the spotlight on legal But in 2005, Chen was placed under house arrest; the next year, abuses, such as the case of Gao Zhisheng, a missing Chinese huhe was tried and convicted of trumped-up charges—property de- man rights lawyer who was last seen in the custody of State Security struction and “interfering with public order”—and sentenced to agents in February. four years in prison. Cohen has been writing and speaking out Despite the recent spate of human rights abuses in China, Coabout the case ever since, even in China. hen has no thoughts of retiring and remains optimistic that China At a 2007 legal conference in Beijing, he held up a Twill create a genuine rule of law. “Seeing the changes I’ve shirt reading “Free the blind man, Chen Guangcheng” seen in China over the last 40 years, I know that it is possee more and spoke about the case. “I wanted to make the people at sible,” he says. “And what better use for my life? I’ve enphotos at the conference feel guilty,” he explains. “There are crimigaged in meaningful work, and I am having an impact.” law.nyu.edu/ nal justice specialists in China who don’t know what’s gomagazine ing on in their own country.” Pamela Kruger is a New Jersey-based writer and editor.