John Kamm

is an American businessman and human rights campaigner active in Chinasince 1972. He is the founder and chairman of The Dui Hua Foundation, based in SanFrancisco with an office in Hong Kong. Kamm was awarded the Department ofCommerce’s Best Global Practices Award by President Bill Clinton in 1997 and theEleanor Roosevelt Award for Human Rights by President George W. Bush in 2001. InSeptember 2004, Kamm received a MacArthur Fellowship for “designing andimplementing an original approach to freeing prisoners of conscience in China.” Kammis the first businessman to be awarded a MacArthur Fellowship,Since his first intervention on behalf of a Chinese prisoner in May 1990, Kamm has mademore than 100 trips to China to engage the government in a dialogue on human rights,focusing on the treatment of prisoners and conditions in prisons. He has made 10 visits toChinese prisons. Dui Hua has submitted requests for information on more than 4,000prisoners since Dui Hua was founded in 1999. In the words ofThe New York Times,“Noother person or organization in the world, including the State Department, has helpedmore Chinese prisoners.”Dui Hua concentrates its efforts on encouraging transparency, accountability, and thehumanitarian treatment of at risk detainees, including political and religious prisoners,juvenile offenders, those facing the death penalty, and women in prison. In addition toadvising the US-China human rights dialogues, Dui Hua has helped many of the otherbilateral rights dialogues between China and western countries. Dui Hua has had specialconsultative status with the Economic and Social Committee (ECOSOC) of UnitedNations since 2005. The status was renewed in 2010.John Kamm received a B.A. (1972) from Princeton University and an M.A. (1975) fromHarvard University. He was the Hong Kong correspondent and representative of theNational Council for US-China Trade (1975-1981) and President of the AmericanChamber of Commerce in Hong Kong in 1990. He managed Occidental ChemicalCompany’s business in China and the Far East from 1981 to 1991.September 2013