Aaron Halegua is a practicing lawyer, consultant, and research fellow at the New York University School of Law’s U.S.-Asia Law Institute and its Center for Labor and Employment Law. He is an expert on labor and employment law, access to justice and legal aid, dispute resolution, and business and human rights in the United States, China, and internationally. His current research interests include labor standards at Chinese companies’ overseas projects. He holds a J.D. from Harvard Law School and an A.B. in International Relations from Brown University.

Halegua has consulted on labor issues in China, Myanmar, and Malaysia for Apple, the Ford Foundation, the International Labor Organization, the International Labor Rights Forum, the Asia Foundation, and the American Bar Association. He has written numerous book chapters, law review articles, and op-eds in publications such as the Hong Kong Law Journal, the Berkeley Journal of International Law, the Harvard Law & Policy Review, and the Washington Post. He is also the author of the report “Who Will Represent China’s Workers: Lawyers, Legal Aid, and the Enforcement of Labor Rights” (2016).

Halegua has been quoted on labor rights issues in The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, The Economist, and Bloomberg. He is also a participant in the Sino-American Dialogue on the Rule of Law and Human Rights organized by the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations and has been invited to speak to industry associations and at top universities and think tanks in the United States, Europe, and Asia.

As a practicing lawyer, Halegua has worked with both non-profit institutions and the world’s top law firms. In 2012, he won a federal court jury trial on behalf of six Chinese nail salon workers. His legal victories have been covered by The New York Times, Newsday, The Wall Street Journal, and Chinese-language television and newspapers.

Last Updated: December 14, 2017

Conversation

05.09.20

How Will China Shape Global Governance?

Jeremy Youde, Melanie Hart & more
How is the Trump administration’s contempt for, and retreat from, multilateral bodies affecting China’s position and weight within them—or indeed its overall strategy for relations with these organizations? Do China’s leaders aspire to supplant the...

Conversation

11.09.18

Forty Years on, Is China Still Reforming?

Carl Minzner, Aaron Halegua & more
In late October, to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the “Reform and Opening Up” policy, China’s Chairman Xi Jinping visited the southern metropolis of Shenzhen, the first major laboratory for the Party’s post-Mao economic reforms. Like his...

Conversation

03.20.18

What Is the Significance of China’s #MeToo Movement?

Aaron Halegua, Kevin Lin & more
As the #MeToo movement has swept America, it has also made waves in greater China. On the mainland, the most widely publicized incident involved Luo Xixi’s allegation in a January 2018 Weibo post that her professor at Beihang University, Chen Xiaowu...

Conversation

12.13.17

Is Chinese Investment Good for Workers?

Aaron Halegua, Yu Zheng & more
China’s Belt and Road Initiative is a $1 trillion plan to deepen economic relations between itself and up to 60 other countries worldwide through large investments in infrastructure, construction, and other projects. Many commentators have...