The Ford Foundation opened its office in Beijing at the beginning of 1988, after starting to program in China in 1983. From the beginning, legal reform and governance were core parts of Ford’s work in China, at the request of Chinese law schools and government ministries. Over time, that work broadened to more explicitly include program support for rights-related initiatives In this session, three former Ford program officers, who served at quite different times in China, will talk about working at the Ford Foundation in Beijing and the challenges and rewards of working with Chinese colleagues and institutions on legal reform, rights and governance in China.
Ira Belkin is a senior research scholar with the U.S.-Asia Law Institute (“USALI”) and Adjunct Professor at NYU School of Law. Belkin previously served as USALI’s first executive director from September 2012 to July 2019. From 2007 to 2012, Belkin served as the law and rights program officer at the Ford Foundation in Beijing. Prior to joining Ford, Belkin combined a career as an American lawyer and federal prosecutor with a deep interest in China. He served two tours at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing and a year as a fellow at the Yale Law School China Law Center. Before working in China, Belkin spent 16 years as a federal prosecutor in Providence, R.I., where he was chief of the criminal division, and in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he was deputy chief of the general crimes unit. Prior to studying law, Belkin taught Chinese language at Middlebury College. In addition to his J.D. from New York University School of Law, Belkin has a master’s degree in Chinese studies from Seton Hall University and a bachelor’s degree from SUNY Albany.
He started going to China in 1972 and began studying Chinese at Middlebury in the summer of 1976, when Professor Lin was director. He has served for many years as consultant for Asia at the Washington-based International Center for Not-for-Profit Law (ICNL), focusing on China, India and Vietnam, and joined the ICNL board of directors in June 2022. In addition to his academic work, Mark has served on a number of organizations working to strengthen research on civil society, philanthropy and the nonprofit sector. His advising and consulting assignments have included human rights and legal reform in China and Vietnam. Over the past several years Mark has assisted a wide range of US and other organizations with issues under the Chinese Overseas NGO Law.
