At lunch time on December 10, a launch event for a new book, A Sword and a Shield: China’s Human Rights Lawyers, takes place at the Foreign Correspondents Club in Hong Kong. The speakers will be Albert Ho, chairman of the China Human Rights Lawyers Concern Group, and Eva Pils, associate law professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Ho will discuss ideas that inspired authors of the book, published by the China Human Rights Lawyers Concern Group. Contributions to the book came from prominent lawyers and legal academics in Hong Kong, the Chinese mainland, Taiwan and the United States.

Pils will comment on what her article in the book calls a “dislocation” of the Chinese Human Rights Movement, describing how the repression of human-rights defenders triggers domestic civil-society responses that support their efforts.