Over the course of a whole day, all the candidate organizations introduced their work and responded to inquiries from panel members. The selection meeting was smooth and successful.

 

I was quite impressed by the meeting and gained a lot from it. The China Society for Human Rights Society (CSHRS) every year organizes a national meeting so that human rights organizations can exchange experience, summarize their experience and present their achievements. The difference between this meeting and the previous ones was better preparation and deeper interaction. My first impression was “outstanding.”The candidate organizations have excellent capability, performance and achievements, indicating good work mechanismsrelated to human rights surveys, research, education and training. They have produced talented professionals, a trained force, served society and made great achievements. My second impression was “brilliant.”Eachlocale, bringing together theory and practice, and based on the characteristics of their own disciplines, regions, locations and ethnicities, produced brilliant research results by bringing forth their discipline’s special characteristics or giving play to their region’s special advantages.

 

I have visited all 10 candidate organizations in the last few years, including some more than once. Each organization has its own special features and strengths. After listening to their introductions and reading their materials, I feelthat all these organizations have made great progress. Take the Southwest University of Political Science and Law, for example.When I visited there in 2011, the university had just combined seven human rights research entities into a Human Rights Education and Research Center, which at the time did not run very smoothly. At the end of 2012, when I attended the Fourth Human Rights Research Experience-sharing Meeting, which was held at the same university, I was pleased to see that the Human Rights Education and Research Center had its own employees andresearch fellows. These included a management and research staff of 27 people, of whom seven were formal employees of the center. The floor space of the center was 670 square meters, including a 200-square meter reference room that housed 4,500 books. The center had also established a system of rules and regulations. The university invested each year at least 500,000 yuan in the center, producing bountiful academic results at a rapid rate. The contrast between my first and second visits to the center was very striking. The improvements showed that the university leadership had increasingly paid attention to human rights research, education and training. It also was closely related to the support and encouragement of CSHRS.[page]

 

The 10 organizations participating in this selection process are among the best in China. They are all extremely excellent and the competition is unusually strong. I believe that these 10 organizations, by participating in this selection, show their confidencein their educational, research and training work, which will stimulate their further development. I strongly affirm this. In fact, looking at this in a certain way, all participants in this selection processare winners. If the current rules called for a “nominee award,”I believe all the candidates should get such an award.

 

We also found some weaknessesduring thisselection. For example, the research perspective of some research institutions tends to be one-sided, and fails to mobilize and integrate interdisciplinary strengths. Some organizations have imbalanced deployment of research resources; they rely only on a few key individuals and don’t achieve the advantages of teamwork. Some organizations are insufficient in the area of applying their results and offering political consultation and advice. The status of some organizations is rather low so that some do not get enough attention from their universities, which has had a certain effect on their research work.

 

Through the current process of selection and listeningto opinions from all sides, I have formulated some ideas and would like to raise a few points.

 

First, it is necessary to have an appropriate attitude regardingselecting the bases. The aim of selecting and building bases isto encourage the best work, which should drive the overall, balanced and orderly development of human rights research organizations nationwide. The selection of bases is not in itself the ultimate goal. Rather, it is a juncture for pushing forward construction and development of local human rights research entities. We hope that all candidates improve themselves, realize their own weaknesses, learn from each other and advance together. For those thatare not selected and those organizationsthat did not submit applications, CSHRS, the State Council Information Office and the Ministry of Education will continue to support them through various means. Selection does not itself signal an end but rather a new beginning. I hope all candidates willgainvaluable experience from the selection process and make new progress.[page]

 

Second, overall planning and general deployment should be strengthened for current bases and human rights research organizations in localities. Bases and human rights research organizations should actively develop themselves and, at the same time,stick to their own special characteristics. Now, each organization has its own special features, whether more or fewer. We don’t need to require that each organization be comprehensive; doing so might very possibly result in redundancy and a lack of having a particular strength. We hope that each organization candevelop its own special characteristics. From an overall perspective, various organizations, based on their own special features, should cooperate with and complement each other, thus contributing to the coordinated development of human rights research nationwide. On the one hand, organizations shouldmaintain their own special characteristics; on the other hand, from the macro perspective, we should maintain a general and overall view.

 

Third, overall development and team-building should be emphasized. Construction of organizations and bases requires not only individuals but also teams. Ideally speaking, every group member should have his/her own research specialty that he/she can work on alone. However, when necessary, these team members can come together to complete large projects.New generations of professionals should be cultivated and research resources should be organized to ensure the long-term effectiveness and sustainability of the work.

 

Fourth, forces should be combined. Human rights research, education and training are not the work of one organization, one university or one discipline, but are a comprehensive, interdisciplinary and cross-specialty project. Universities and research institutions frequently have multidisciplinary resources, but are still ineffective atintegration. New mechanisms should be studied and new ways should be explored in order to combine all these forces, broaden our vision, expand our thinking and continue improving human rights work.[page]

 

Selection itself is not the goal. We hope the process of selection can encourage, stimulate and guide the development of human rights research organizations nationwide. Efforts should be made to continuously push forward the cause of human rights in China.

 

（This is a speech by LuoHaocai, President of the China Society for Human Rights Studies, at the meeting for selecting the second group of National Human Rights Education and Training Bases, March 17, 2014）