Green litigation in China today

For those interested in the state of environmental litigation in China, China Dialogue, a bilingual site on China’s environment, ran an excellent series of articles last month on the topic.  I opened the series with an article entitled “Green litigation in China today.”  Here is an excerpt.

Environmental litigation is difficult business in China. Even as the country enters its 12th Five-Year Plan period, with perhaps the most extensive set of top-down environmental and energy policies and targets it has ever announced, the space for bottom-up public supervision, particularly through the use of law and the courts, has in recent years been constrained.

There has been some progress in the development of tools that create greater transparency and accountability in environmental laws and policies. There have been modest, but important, improvements in government and corporate disclosure of environmental information in recent years. A small cadre of dedicated and increasingly sophisticated Chinese and international environmental groups and journalists continue to highlight China’s environmental problems and search for possible solutions.

But high hopes that lawyers and legal experts could harness the law to bring about positive environmental change have been tempered. As one leading environmental lawyer told me, “we must lower our expectations.”

The other articles in the series include:

1. “Plight of the public: citizen participation in China” Part I and Part II – by lawyer Zhang Jingjing, one of the most important environmental lawyers in China today (and a former colleague).

2. “Shaping China’s green laws” – by Charles McElwee, author of Environmental Law in China.  He used to write the excellent www.chinaenvironmentallaw.com blog.

3. “Seeking damages” – an interview with former China environmental official Zhang Kunmin.

4. “Legal lessons from America” – by Alex Levinson and Kristen McDonald of Pacific Environment.

5. “Losses at sea” – by Xia Jun, another terrific Chinese environmental lawyer has consistently stood up for the dispossessed.

6. “Eight cases that mattered” – a summary of eight Chinese environmental cases.

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Reader Comments

One Reply to “Green litigation in China today”

  1. Hello,
    I recently became aware of the environmental problems in China due to my work. I just saw videos on GuiYu and other documentaries. In one of the documentary by East 101, I saw two lawyers who are engaged in helping the villagers make a stand against companies polluting the environment. In this particular video, the polluting company is incinerating medical wastes in MinHe (?) of Fujian Province, at a village known as QinFuLin (?).

    Our technology can address these particular problems. It was invented by a Singaporean, in 2005 and recently being marketed. I am the marketing representative.

    I am wondering if you can assist us to bring this technology into a greater part of China. We have already sold one unit to a JV company in China, looking to rid medical and toxic wastes.

    I like to have your views please.

    Best Regards.
    HQ Yeo

Comments are closed.

About Alex

Alex Wang is Professor of Law at UCLA School of Law, and a Faculty Co-Director of the Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment. He is a leading expert on en…

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About Alex

Alex Wang is Professor of Law at UCLA School of Law, and a Faculty Co-Director of the Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment. He is a leading expert on en…

READ more

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