Paul Gewirtz

The legal scholar Paul Gewirtz probably did not set out to become a back-channel diplomat when he joined the Clinton administration for a one-year stint in 1997 as a special representative at the State Department advising on rule-of-law issues. But since then, he has championed unofficial outreach and helped establish Track II dialogue on U.S.-China relations. And the quietly influential China Center he directs, established in 1999, has promoted legal reform and brought U.S. legal expertise to bear on shaping how Chinese laws are written.