Teng Biao is a Chinese human rights lawyer and legal scholar whose research focuses on China's criminal justice, human rights, social movements, and political transition. In 2003 he and two fellow doctors of law petitioned the National People's Congress to review the constitutionality of China's custody and repatriation system, after a young migrant worker named Sun Zhigang was beaten to death in detention. The State Council abolished the system within weeks. Teng co-founded the Open Constitution Initiative that same year and China Against the Death Penalty in 2010, and served as counsel to the blind activist Chen Guangcheng and the dissident Hu Jia.
He is one of the earliest promoters of the Rights Defense Movement in China and of Charter 08, the manifesto for which Liu Xiaobo received the Nobel Peace Prize. A former lecturer at the China University of Political Science and Law, he was detained repeatedly, including for more than two months during the 2011 crackdown on China's "Jasmine" protests. He now teaches at Hunter College and the University of Chicago. His awards include the Human Rights Prize of the French Republic (2007) and the National Endowment for Democracy's Democracy Award (2008).
