Zhang Wanhong earned his Ph.D. in Law from Wuhan University School of Law, Wuhan, where he now holds the position of Associate Professor of Jurisprudence. He has mainly been working on legal issues related to human rights, public interest and civil society. The courses he offers include Jurisprudence, Comparative Law, Human Rights Law, Legal Empowerment Clinic, and others.
He was the Edwards Fellow at Columbia University School of Law, New York, USA, in the spring semester of 2005. In the summer of the same year, he visited and lectured at the Norwegian Centre for Human Rights, Oslo, Norway, and Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, Lund, Sweden. He is the author and translator of a number of books, and has published articles in both international and Chinese publications.
As the Director of Wuhan University Public Interest and Development Law Institute, Professor Zhang founded the Access to Justice in Rural China project in 2006, which is funded through the British Department for International Development’s (DFIC) Civil Society Challenge Fund, in collaboration with The Rights Practice. This project aims to provide citizens with access to relevant, effective, affordable, and independent legal advice and services all rural counties of Hubei province. The project will inform the development of a national strategy for the provision of legal services for the rural poor. The project builds on existing initiatives that provide legal aid through legal aid offices or non-governmental law centers, and looks at how these services can be extended through training, networking, capacity building and increased efficiency. Now in its third year, the project is expected to be completed by the end of 2009. He is also working the field of protection and promotion of human rights of the poor and marginalized in China, say, migrant workers, persons with disability, among others.
In 2008, Professor Zhang was invited to participate in the drafting of China’s first National Human Rights Action Plan 2009-2010, which was released in April 13, 2009. Recently, he has been invited to be the research partner of the Danish Human Rights Institute for 2009.