Dr. Sophie Richardson is co-Executive Director of Chinese Human Rights Defenders, and senior China advisor to Climate Rights International. In 2024 she was a Visiting Scholar at Stanford University’s Center for Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law, where she researched democracies’ support for human rights in China. From 2006-2023 she served as the China Director at Human Rights Watch, overseeing the organization’s research and advocacy on Chinese government human rights abuses inside and outside the country. She has worked closely with civil society groups, governments, and United Nations bodies, and serves on the boards of several organizations. Dr. Richardson has testified to the Canadian Parliament, European Parliament, and the United States Senate and House of Representatives.

She is the author of China, Cambodia, and the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence (Columbia University Press, Dec. 2009), an in-depth examination of China’s foreign policy since 1954’s Geneva Conference, including rare interviews with Chinese policy makers. She speaks Mandarin, and received her doctorate from the University of Virginia, certificate from the Johns Hopkins University-Nanjing University Center for Sino-American Relations, and her BA from Oberlin College.