Personality Rights and the Inner Self in China

On Friday 19th September 2025, the Law and the Inner Self team will explore a new avenue of research at the European China Law Studies Association Conference at University College Cork.

Joined by Dr Heping Dang of the Chinese University of Hong Kong and Shaoming Zhu (UCC), who will act as chair of our panel, our team will explore connections between personality rights and the inner self in the context of the new Chinese Civil Code.

Here is a short description of the papers in our panel:

In the first part of the panel, Talya Deibel provides the historical background and overview of how personality rights are protected in European civil codes. She explores how personality rights can be traced back to the Roman action for iniuria and how these rights were later developed in 19^th century German scholarship and 20^th century law before being transplanted into private law regimes around Europe. Note that Patrick O'Callaghan will present Talya's paper.

In the second part, Felicitas Benziger sets out the conceptual connections between personality rights and the legal protection of the inner self in Europe. She shows how safeguarding the integrity of the inner self is one of the core functions of personality rights.  

In the third part, Patrick O’Callaghan provides an overview of the legal discourse on personality rights in China before the introduction of the CCC and analyses how personality rights are protected in the CCC. He offers some preliminary thoughts on how the inner self finds expression in the CCC, highlighting similarities and differences between the approaches taken in Europe.  

In the final part, Heping Dang discusses the role of the idea of the inner self in Chinese culture. This part lays the foundation for our conceptual discussion at the conference.

The full conference programme can be found here: https://www.ucc.ie/en/law/europeanchinalawstudiesassociationannualconference2025/