Sharon Hom

Sharon Kang Hom is Executive Director of Human Rights in China (HRIC) and professor of law emerita, City University of New York School of Law. She was named by the Wall Street Journal as one of 2007's "50 Women to Watch" for their impact on business.

Biography

Sharon Hom was born in Hong Kong. She received her B.A. from Sarah Lawrence College and her J.D. from the New York University School of Law, where she was a Root-Tilden Scholar.

Hom has over 16 years of experience in Sino-American law training and legal exchange initiatives. She was a Fulbright Scholar in China (1986–88), served on the U.S.-China Committee on Legal Education Exchange with China (CLEEC) (1990–2000), and was a faculty member and program director for the U.S. Clinical Legal Education Workshop convened at Tsinghua University School of Law (2000). She was also a scholar-in-residence at the Rockefeller Foundation's Bellagio Center in Italy (2000).

She has participated in numerous NGO, corporate, multilateral and bilateral consultations and workshops. She has testified on behalf of HRIC before a number of international policy makers, including the US House Committee on Foreign Affairs and the European Parliament, and has given numerous presentations at major conferences on human rights and China organized by non-governmental groups such as the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and World Press Freedom Committee.

She sits on the advisory board of Human Rights Watch/Asia (1995–present) and on the Committee on Asian Affairs (1998–present) of the Bar Association of the City of New York.

Publications

Hom's research and publications focus on Chinese legal reforms, trade, technology, corporate social responsibility, and international human rights.

• Contracting Law (1996, 2000)
• English-Chinese Lexicon of Women and Law (Yinghan funu yu falu cihuishiyi) (UNESCO, 1995)
• Chinese Women Traversing Diaspora: Memoirs, Essays, and Poetry (1999)
• “China and the WTO: Year One”, China Rights Forum, 2003, No. 1, http://hrichina.org/sites/default/files/oldsite/PDFs/CRF.1.2003/SharonHom1.2003.pdf.
• Challenging China: Struggle and Home in an Era of Change (2007)
• “The Promise of a People's Olympics,” China's Great Leap: The Beijing Games and Olympian Human Rights Challenges (2008), (Minky Worden, ed.)
• "Advancing women's international human rights in China," Gender Equality, Citizenship and Human Rights: Controversies and challenges in China and the Nordic countries (2010),(Pauline Stoltz, Marina Svensson, Sun Zhongxin, Qi Wang eds.)
• “Claiming Women’s Rights in China,” The Unfinished Revolution: Voices from the Global Fight for Women’s Rights (2012), (Minky Worden, ed.)

Testimonies and Presentations

• U.S. Congressional-Executive Commission on China: 15 Years after Tiananmen: Is Democracy in China's Future?, June 2004
• U.S. House of Representatives Committee on International Relations: The Internet in China: A Tool for Freedom or Suppression?, February 2006
• U.S. House of Representatives Committee on International Relations: Monitoring Respect for Human Rights around the World: A Review of the Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2005, March 2006
• U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom: The Many Faces of China's Repression: Human Rights, Religious Freedom, and U.S. Diplomacy in China, January 2007
• World Press Freedom Committee, After the 2008 Olympics in China, What Next for Press Freedom?, from "Challenges and Opportunities of New Media for Press Freedom", February 2007
• European Parliament Subcommittee on Human Rights: Hearing on Human Rights in China in the Run-up to the Olympics, November 2007
• U.S. Congressional-Executive Commission on China: The Impact of the 2008 Olympic Games on Human Rights and the Rule of Law in China, February 2008