Ryan Martinez Mitchell\, JD ’12
Associate Professor of Law\, The Chinese University of Hong Ko ng
Author of Recentering the World: China and the Transformation of International Law
Since the adoption of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015\, this global development concept has been increasingly incorporated into the People’s Republic of China’s structures of state planning\, intra-Party governance\, and a comprehensive ideologic al narrative articulating both national and global objectives. Indeed\, Chi na’s role in and advocacy for the SDGs\, beginning during the negotiations on their formation\, is now at the heart of its foreign policy and internat ional law initiatives. There has also been an increasing permeation of SDG indicators into Beijing’s domestic formulation and evaluation of policies ( including for audiences of elite policymakers). Significantly\, China has a lso come to be seen by many as a model of achievement with regard to the SD Gs at a time of US withdrawal and generalized crisis in the arena of global development.
The emerging pattern could be seen as one example of “a uthoritarian sustainability”: a configuration in which the legitimacy of il liberal governance is extensively reinforced by the discourse and metrics o f sustainable development. As a unique melding of China’s domestic politics with a global agenda\, the SDG targets now serve as guiding principles\, i ntegrating social and environmental policy\, economic regulation\, and stat e legitimacy claims into a single project. At the same time\, viewed in con nection with the international legal order\, Beijing’s approach may help sp ur a global transition away from civil and political conceptions of human r ights\, in favor of the similarly universalist but “post-liberal” SDG frame work. However\, while in many ways a success story\, China’s model of SDG e ngagement also includes several paradoxical features that may indicate its own replicability challenges\, latent drawbacks or contradictions\, and the need to contemplate alternative paths. Empirical and structural analysis o f China’s legal and regulatory approaches indicate features–such as relianc e on controlled disruption\, völkisch ecology\, and “saltationist” mobiliza tion–that call into question the viability of authoritarian sustainability as a long-term model in China or as an example for developing states.
Ryan Martínez Mitchell is an Associate Professor of Law at the Chinese Unive rsity of Hong Kong. His work on international and comparative law\, legal h istory\, Chinese law\, and Asian legal systems has appeared in leading acad emic journals. His analysis of these issues has also featured in policy-rel ated publications including Foreign Affairs\, The National Interest\, The D iplomat\, and others\, and his analysis has been cited in media including T he New York Times\, The Wall Street Journal\, Financial Times\, The Nationa l Interest\, NPR\, Bloomberg\, Nikkei Asia\, Al Jazeera\, Foreign Policy\, and other major media outlets. His first book\, Recentering the World: China and the Transformation of International La w\, was published by Cambridge University Press in 2022. Mitchell holds a B.A. with honors from The New School\, a J.D. from Harvard Law Scho ol\, where he was also a Cravath International Fellow and an Irving R. Kauf man Public Interest Fellow\, and a Ph.D. in Law with distinction from Yale Law School\, where he was an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Humanities Fellow and obtained Yale’s Archaia qualification in the study of premodern societi es. He is a member of the State Bar of California and has experience in int ernational human rights litigation. In the current academic year\, he will be a visiting Fellow at Yale Law School’s Orville H. Schell Jr. Center for International Human Rights\, Global Faculty at the Freie Universität Berlin Department of Law\, and an International Affairs Fellow in Japan for the C ouncil on Foreign Relations.
A light lunch will be provided at this e vent.
*Location note: In past years\, EALS talks were generally in Mo rgan Courtroom (Austin 308)\, but due to the construction project currently underway next to Austin Hall\, we will hold most EALS talks in Wasserstein Hall during the 2025-2026 academic year.
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