Carl Minzner

Senior Fellow For China Studies

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Carl Minzner is senior fellow for China studies at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). He is also a professor at Fordham Law School, specializing in Chinese politics and law. He is the author of End of an Era: How China's Authoritarian Revival Is Undermining Its Rise (Oxford University Press, 2018).

Minzner has published numerous articles on Chinese politics and governance in academic publications including China Quarterly, Asia Policy, American Journal of Comparative Law, Journal of Democracy, China Leadership Monitor, as well as opinion pieces in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and Christian Science Monitor, among others.

Prior to teaching at Fordham, Minzner was an associate professor at the School of Law at Washington University in St. Louis. He served as a CFR international affairs fellow from 2006 to 2007. From 2003 to 2006, he was senior counsel at the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, where he monitored, reported, and advised on rule-of-law and human rights issues in the People’s Republic of China for both Congress and the executive branch. He has served as a Fulbright Scholar (2019–20), a fellow in the public intellectuals program at the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations (2011–13), a Yale–China Association legal education fellow at the Northwest Institute of Politics and Law in Xi’an (2002–03), as a law clerk for the Honorable Raymond Clevenger of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (2001–02), and as a teacher with Volunteers in Asia in Tainan (1994–95).

Minzner received a BA in international relations from Stanford University, an MIA from the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University, and a JD from Columbia Law School. He is a member of the California bar.

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