mission
Asia Catalyst partners with activists in Asia to inspire, create and launch innovative, self-sustaining programs and organizations that advance human rights, social justice and environmental protection. We link up Asian community leaders, journalists, activists and lawyers with each other and with international experts who can help them to realize their visions. We incubate programs that may be too risky or innovative for larger organizations to take on.
Download our 2009 Annual Report, 2008 Annual Report or 2007 Annual Report. Our annual financial statement is available to the public upon request.
board of directors
Yvonne Y.F. Chan, co-chair, treasurer
Sophie Richardson, Ph.D., co-chair
John Emerson, secretary
Jerome A. Cohen
Joseph Saunders
Minky Worden
John Santoleri, chair, advisory committee
staff
Sara L.M. Davis, Ph.D., executive director
Gisa Hartmann, coordinator
Ken Oh, Asia Report editor
interns and volunteers
Florence Au
Adam Froiran
Annie Ye Ren
Hye Gi Shim
designers
Simon Barna, logo
Claire Kells, website
biographies
staff
founder and executive director -- Sara L.M. Davis, Ph.D. (or “Meg”) is a writer and human rights advocate who has conducted research and advocacy on HIV/AIDS and human rights, police abuse, housing rights, environmental rights, and rule of law in China, Thailand, Burma, Cambodia and Indonesia. Dr. Davis earned a Ph.D. at the University of Pennsylvania and held postdoctoral fellowships at Yale University and UCLA. As a China researcher at Human Rights Watch, she published reports and conducted global advocacy. Davis’ book, Song and Silence: Ethnic Revival on China’s Southwest Borders (Columbia University Press, 2005), based on her doctoral dissertation, draws on research in Yunnan, China and Shan State, Burma and has been reprinted in Thailand. Her articles have appeared in The Wall Street Journal Asia, International Herald Tribune, South China Morning Post, and Modern China, and are available online at www.songandsilence.com.
coordinator -- German native Gisa Hartmann received her MA in Sinology and Political Science from University of Cologne, Germany, in summer 2009. Her thesis discusses psychosocial impacts on children affected by HIV/AIDS and is based on field research in Anhui Province. At University of Cologne, she has organized symposia, panel discussions, and a Chinese documentary film festival, and she lived in Beijing for one and a half years.
editor, Asia Report -- Ken Oh is the editor of our Chinese-language website on economic and social rights in Asia, Asia Report or 亚洲调查。 Ken is also a judicial law clerk to the Honorable Gary DiVito and the Honorable Idee Fox of the First Judicial District of Pennsylvania. He holds a BA in Political Science and English Literature from Swarthmore College, and a JD from Temple University School of Law. His previous work and internship experience includes the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation, where he focused on transitional justice mechanisms and new constitutions.
board of directors
co-chair, treasurer -- Yvonne Y.F. Chan is a partner in the Corporate Department and a member of the Investment Funds Group of Paul, Weiss and Rifkind, where she concentrates on the organization of pooled investment funds that raise private equity, including buyout funds, venture funds and funds of funds, as well as offshore and onshore hedge funds. Her practice includes the preparation and negotiation of definitive documents detailing the arrangements among fund principals and sponsors. Ms. Chan has also worked extensively on foreign direct investments in China and mergers and acquisitions in the U.S., with a focus on cross-border joint ventures. She is currently serving as counsel to several private equity funds with regard to their fund raising and investment activities in Asia. A New Zealand-trained lawyer, Ms. Chan has worked in the firm’s Beijing, Hong Kong and New York offices, and formerly served as General Counsel-North Asia of Glaxo China Limited in Hong Kong. Ms. Chan is fluent in English and Mandarin Chinese. She is qualified as a barrister and solicitor in New Zealand.
member, board of directors -- Jerome A. Cohen is a founding board member of Asia Catalyst and Professor at New York University School of Law, Of Counsel in the international law firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, LLP and Senior Fellow for Asia Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. Prof. Cohen has special expertise in business and public law relating to Asia and has long represented companies and individuals in contract negotiations and dispute resolution in China, Japan, Vietnam, Korea and other countries of East Asia. Prof. Cohen formerly served as Jeremiah J. Smith Professor, Director of East Asian Legal Studies and Associate Dean at Harvard Law School. At New York University School of Law, he teaches courses on “Law and Society in China – The Criminal Process” and “International Business Transactions in China”. He has published several books and many articles on Chinese law.
Prof. Cohen was Visiting Professor of Law at Doshisha University in Kyoto in 1971-72 and Honorary Professor of Law at the University of Hong Kong in 1979. The Cohens lived in Beijing during 1979-81, while Prof. Cohen took part in various trade and investment contract negotiations and taught a course on international business law, in the Chinese language, for Beijing officials. Prof. Cohen is a member of the Panel of Arbitrators of both the China International Economic and Trade Arbitration Commission and the China Securities Regulatory Commission in Beijing; Chair of the China Advisory Committee for the International Institute for Conflict Prevention and Resolution; a Trustee of the China Institute in America; a Director of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations; and a Trustee of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He currently serves as Chair of the Asia Law Initiative Advisory Council for the American Bar Association and formerly has served as Chairman of the New York/Beijing Friendship Committee; a Trustee of The Asia Society, a Corporate Director of the Japan Society; Advisor to the Government of Sichuan Province, China; Chairman of the American Arbitration Association’s China Conciliation Committee; Vice Chair of the Advisory Council for The Johns Hopkins-Nanjing University Joint Center in China and a member of the Board of Editors of both the China Quarterly and the American Journal of International Law. He continues to serve on the Advisory Board of Human Rights Watch-Asia. Prof. Cohen is also Director of the American Foreign Law Association and received the AFLA Distinguished Service Award in 2001. He was also awarded the 2000 Lifetime Service to Asian Legal Development Award.
secretary -- John Emerson is a founding board member of Asia Catalyst and an activist, graphic designer, writer and programmer based in New York City. He has designed web sites, printed materials and motion graphics for leading media companies as well as local and international non-profit organizations. His writing about graphic design has been published in Communication Arts and Print, featured in Metropolis Magazine and the Wall Street Journal, and translated into Italian by the Italian Association of Graphic Designers. Mr. Emerson co-founded the social media consultancy Apperceptive in 2006 and sold it to Six Apart Ltd in 2008. His website is backspace.
co-chair -- Sophie Richardson, Ph.D. is a founding board member of Asia Catalyst and the deputy director of Human Rights Watch’s Asia Division. Her dissertation examined Chinese foreign policy toward Cambodia, and she has published on domestic political reform in China and on contemporary Cambodian politics. Before joining Human Rights Watch, Dr. Richardson worked for the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, where she oversaw electoral, legislative, and political party programs in Cambodia, China, and Hong Kong. She has also served as a consultant on democratization, human rights, and governance to the International Crisis Group, the National Democratic Institute, Human Rights Watch, and the World Bank, with publications in the Journal of Asian Studies, The Nation (Bangkok), The Phnom Penh Post, and the Far Eastern Economic Review. She is a graduate of the University of Virginia and Oberlin College.
member, board of directors -- Joseph Saunders is Deputy Program Director at Human Rights Watch. An Indonesia specialist and lawyer by training, he is currently responsible for supervising the work of HRW’s programs on Asia, the Middle East and North Africa, the United States, Central and Latin America, women’s rights, business & human rights, and terrorism/counterterrorism. Apart from a brief period as senior program officer at the Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs, he has spent the past ten years at HRW. Prior to joining HRW, Mr. Saunders was a lawyer at Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton in New York and spent two years in Indonesia as a Fulbright scholar. He has studied human biology (Stanford U.), anthropology (Cornell U), and law (NYU), where he was editor-in-chief of the law review.
member, board of directors -- As Media Director of Human Rights Watch, Minky Worden works with the world’s journalists to help them cover crises, wars, human rights abuses and political developments in more than 70 countries worldwide. Before joining Human Rights Watch in 1998, Ms. Worden lived and worked in Hong Kong as an adviser to Democratic Party chairman Martin Lee and worked at the Department of Justice in Washington, D.C. as a speechwriter for the U.S. Attorney General and in the Executive Office for US Attorneys. A member of the Council on Foreign Relations, Ms. Worden speaks Cantonese and German, and is an elected member of the Overseas Press Club's Board of Governors. She is the editor of China's Great Leap: The Beijing Games and Olympian Human Rights Challenges (Seven Stories, May 2008) and the co-editor of Torture (New Press, 2005).
donors
Below is a list of our donors for fiscal year 2008-09.
$50,000 and above
Levi Strauss Foundation
National Endowment for Democracy
$10,000 and above
AIDS Fonds
Richard W. Fields
U.S.-China Legal Cooperation Fund
$5,000 and above
Freedom House
Taiwan Foundation for Democracy
$1,000 and above
Yvonne Chan
Jerome A. Cohen
Yoden Thonden
Minky Worden
$500 and above
Joanne Csete
$100 and above
Janice Brown
Mary Devins
John Emerson
Maggie Lewis
Emmanuelle & Robin Lyon
Dana Nguyen
Robert & Cynthia Richardson
Sophie Richardson
Joe Saunders
James Seymour
many thanks to all our donors for your friendship and support!