MCLC: New weapon in China's war on pollution

[MCLC LIST]

MCLC LIST
New weapon in China’s war on pollution
Source: China Real Time, WSJ (3/27/15)
A Potentially Powerful New Weapon in China’s War on Pollution
By Stanley Lubman
People do morning exercises on a polluted day in Jiaozuo, Henan province, March 16, 2015. China Daily/Reuters
Days before the opening of this year’s annual meeting of the National People’s Congress, a dramatic documentary about the profusion of life-threatening environmental pollution in China went viral online. By the time the documentary, “Under the Dome,” was pulled from video sites a week later, it had been viewed over 100 million times.
More damning than its depiction of the seriousness of China’s pollution problem was the film’s demonstration of the weakness of China’s government in enforcing pollution limits – a weakness further demonstrated by censors’ decision to take the film down.
A key tool for sidestepping weak government enforcement – if it is allowed to function as intended – is the country’s recently amended Environmental Protection Law, which makes is easier for environmental nonprofit groups to bring public-interest lawsuits against polluters.
On Wednesday, a court in Dezhou, in eastern China’s Shandong province, accepted thefirst lawsuit filed under the amended law, which went into effect on Jan. 1. In that suit, an environmental group called the All-China Environment Federation is demanding 30 million yuan ($4.8 million) in compensation from a local glass factory that has been repeatedly cited by environmental authorities for producing excessive pollution.
“Under the Dome,” produced by former China Central Television anchor Chai Jing, highlights why the amended law needs to be enforced. After detailing the breathtaking extent of China’s pollution problem, she points to precedents in Germany, England, the U.S. and Japan, where industrial development created pollution dangers to which each nation responded  by creating government agencies to set standards and enforce them. She then goes on to document how China’s Ministry of Environmental protection has lacked similar ability to take action.
This is because, as the WSJ’s Andrew Browne noted in a recent column on the film, “Chinese industry, much of it state-owned, disregards regulations, sets its own standards, or manages to play off different parts of the bureaucracy against one another.”
Lawsuits are one way for society to enforce regulations where environmental authorities can’t or won’t. But as Chai notes in the film, only 1% of major environmental disputes in China ever end up in court. That’s because previously, only “relevant organizations” were allowed to file such lawsuits.
The amended environmental protection law could change that.  Liu Jinmei, a young environmental lawyer at the China University of Politics and Law Center’s for Legal Assistance to Pollution Victims, recently told the South China Morning Post that she thinks “change is coming.” The revised law, she said, “is a positive development that offers real hope to environmental lawyers and our clients.”
China’s central authorities are still clearly concerned that anger over pollution could pose a threat to social stability. This is evident in the treatment of Chai’s film, which was censored despite having been praised by China’s Minister of Environmental Protection. As Browne explains, “it had become a social phenomenon that threatened to run out of control.”
Not long after “Under the Dome” was taken down, two activists in the city of Xian were reportedly detained after they had taken part in a small anti-smog protest.
If it is enforced, the revised environmental law could help improve both air quality and social stability, in the latter case by funneling street-level frustrations into the courtroom.
An interpretation issued by the Supreme People’s Court soon after the amended law took effect should be helpful with enforcement.  It provides that “prosecuting organs, departments responsible for supervision and management of environmental protection, and other organs may support social organizations in their civil public interest lawsuits, including by assisting in investigation and collecting evidence.” The interpretation also directs the people’s courts to “investigate and collect evidence that it deems necessary for the trial of an environment-related civil public interest lawsuit.”
One lingering question is which sorts of organizations will find success in filing pollution lawsuits. It’s noteworthy that the plaintiff in the first case, the All-China Environment Federation, is a group with close ties to the government. Will more independent groups also be able to sue polluters?
Ms. Chai has successfully called attention to the amended environmental law.  The tools for enforcement now exist, but there must be a willingness to use and improve them.  The environmental ministry’s authority to support suits by NGOs against polluters needs to be exercised vigorously.  Given the danger of pollution to hundreds of millions of Chinese, increases in manpower, funding and resources for NGOs and citizens who want to sue polluters are urgently needed now.
Stanley Lubman, a long-time specialist on Chinese law, is a Distinguished Lecturer in Residence at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law. He is the author of “Bird in a Cage: Legal Reform in China After Mao” (Stanford University Press, 1999) and editor of “The Evolution of Law Reform in China: An Uncertain Path” (Elgar, 2012).
by denton.2 at osu.edu on April 17, 2015
You are subscribed to email updates from MCLC Resource Center  
To stop receiving these emails, click here.

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.osu.edu/pipermail/mclc/attachments/20150417/c406663f/attachment-0001.html>