Li Yumei Lecturer, Department of Law, Agricultural University , China

Li Yumei brings over ten years’ experience in agricultural law and environmental law, from theory to practice. Since 2001 she has taught in the Department of Law at China Agricultural University where she lectures on jurisprudence, land law, and environmental law. Li Yumei also conducts extensive research in the field of agricultural and environmental law and has written numerous books and articles. Her research focuses primarily on the legal issues around the sustainable utilization of land and the protection of natural resources, rural disputes, environmental deterioration in rural areas, regulations of environmental impacts from livestock, emissions trading, interpretation of environmental law in the view of an active judiciary, and food safety.

Li Yumei has volunteered as a people's assessor in the court of Haidian district in Beijing since 2005 and from 2006–07 was a visiting scholar in Germany at the University of Göttingen’s German-Chinese Institute of Law. As a researcher Li Yumei has conducted many social surveys in rural areas in which she observed how ownership of land improves the quality of women’s lives, including their ability to participate in family decisions.

Li Yumei earned her JD with honors in environmental law from China University of Political Science and Law and an LLM and BA with honors in economic law from China Agricultural University.

As a Visiting Professional, Li Yumei looks forward to participating in an international network of women’s land rights professionals, learning ideas of how to strengthen women’s property rights in law and practice in China, and conveying this knowledge as a legal advisor and researcher.

Xu Hui Senior Researcher, Professor of Law, and Executive Director of the Public Interest Law Center, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Beijing, China

Xu Hui has built her twenty-year law career researching and practicing legal aid and public interest litigation in China. She teaches public interest law and procedural law at the graduate school of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing and has lectured at Columbia Law School, New York; Central European University, Budapest; and in Beijing at the Renmin University School of Law, the National Judges College of China, and the Supreme People’s Court.

She has worked on the legal protection of Chinese women’s rights since 2003, including as legal counsel on litigation concerning rural women’s land rights, and has lectured on Chinese human rights institutions and the legislation and operation of legal aid for women’s rights protection in China at the EU-China Judicial Conference and the EU-China Human Rights Dialogue. Her publications include Gender and Law (co-author) and Roads to Social Justice, Legal Aid and Law Reform in Transitional Society.

Xu Hui received her PhD in procedural law from Renmin University and is a special counsel of the judicial reform office of the China Supreme People’s Court and a senior consultant for the Public Interest Lawyers’ Network for the Protection of Chinese Women’s Rights.

Xu Hui regards the Visiting Professionals Program as an opportunity to enhance her knowledge of the challenges to strengthening women’s land rights; to learn from the experiences, strategies, and solutions offered by her peers; and to join an international network of colleagues engaging in work for women’s land rights.