Ge Chen

Ge Chen is Associate Professor in Global Media and Information Law at Durham Law School, where he directs the Centre for Chinese Law and Policy. He is an Affiliated Fellow of the Information Society Project (ISP) at Yale Law School, where he was a Resident Fellow in 2021–22. He is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA) and a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA).

Chen’s research focuses on freedom of expression and its relationship with constitutionalism, information governance, and the rule of law in comparative and transnational contexts. His recent work examines the extraterritorial reach of censorship, competing models of speech regulation, and the exercise of state and technological power over expression, with particular attention to China and its global implications.

He is the author of Copyright and International Negotiations: An Engine of Free Expression in China? (Cambridge University Press, 2017), which was featured in the Harvard Law Review. His research has appeared in Human Rights Quarterly, Journal of Free Speech Law, Global Constitutionalism, Journal of Media Law, Journal of International Media & Entertainment Law and other scholarly journals. His article “The ‘Constitutional’ Rise of Chinese Speech Imperialism” received the 2025 Franklyn S. Haiman Award for Distinguished Scholarship in Freedom of Expression from the National Communication Association.

Beyond academia, Chen’s research has informed policy discussions and public debates on freedom of expression, constitutionalism, and China’s legal and political development. His work has been cited in reports by the European Commission, the US China Economic and Security Review Commission and the RAND Corporation, and he has provided expert commentary to international media outlets including the BBC, Reuters, Bloomberg, Deutsche Welle, and The Economist. He is also an active participant in international scholarly and public discussions on free speech, including as an invited speaker at the 2026 Global Free Speech Summit in Nashville.

Before joining Durham, Chen held research appointments at the University of Cambridge and the Mercator Institute for China Studies in Berlin, and was a Visiting Academic of the Programme in Comparative Media Law and Policy at the University of Oxford. He received his doctorate in law from the University of Göttingen. He serves on the Board of Directors of the European China Law Studies Association.