From Dispute to Decision: Suing Polluters in China

China Quarterly - Tập 206 - Trang 294-312 - 2011
Rachel E. Stern1
1Society of Fellows, Harvard University. Email:

Tóm tắt

AbstractThis article traces a civil environmental lawsuit from dispute to decision to explore how environmental law works, as well as how lawyers and litigants try to work the law. Detailing ground-level encounters with a legal system promoted and carefully watched by political elites offers a fresh perspective on the ways the past 30 years of legal reforms have affected the experience of China's court users. Amid accounts of financial stress, lawyer–client tensions and the hunt for elite allies, what emerges is a story of variation. Although plaintiffs and lawyers agree that environmental cases are hard and wringing concessions out of polluters requires remarkable persistence, the process sometimes creaks forward so that appraisals are conducted on time, help is solicited and compensation won. How Chinese courts work (and how well they work) depends on local circumstances, an insight that suggests that disaggregating expansive concepts like rule of law is a helpful way to explore complexity instead of glossing over it.

Từ khóa


Tài liệu tham khảo

McMullin, 2009, Do Chinese environmental laws work? A study of litigation as response to fishery pollution, UCLA Pacific Basin Law Journal, 26, 10.5070/P8262022210

van Rooij, 2005, Regulating Land and Pollution in China: Lawmaking, Compliance, and Enforcement; Theories and Cases, 191

Mertha, 2008, Water Warriors: Citizen Action and Policy Change

10.1017/CBO9780511791086

10.1086/518907

May, 2003, Now more than ever: trends in environmental citizen suits at 30, Widener Law Review, 10

Lan, 2008, Susong guize difanghua shizheng yanjiu, Zhengzhi yu shehui fazhan (Law and Social Development), 14, 13

Oster, 2006, In booming China, a doctor battles a polluting factory, The Wall Street Journal

Wang, 2007, The role of law in environmental protection in China: recent developments, Vermont Journal of Environmental Law, 8, 212

10.1111/j.1540-5893.2006.00281.x

Yang, 2005, Environmental NGOs and institutional dynamics in China, The China Quarterly, 191, 44

10.1080/10670560903335777

10.2307/1953909

Sha, 2003, Jishiyu: Wang Canfa, Zhongguo qingnian bao (China Youth Daily)

Stern, 2010, On the frontlines: making decisions in Chinese civil environmental lawsuits, Law and Policy, 32, 79

He, 2004, Yige xiao shancun de huanbao jianxin lu, Nanfang zhoumou (Southern Weekend)

10.1111/j.1540-5893.2006.00257.x

Diamant, 2005, Engaging the Law in China, 10.1515/9780804779289

Xu, 2009, Susong zhi wang: Yan Yiming, Nanfang zhoumou (Southern Weekend)

10.1080/14672710122544

10.1017/CBO9780511511202

Liebman, 1997, Class action in China, Harvard Law Review, 1523

10.2307/3182147

2008, Walking on Thin Ice: Control, Intimidation and Harassment of Lawyers in China, 28

Liebman, 2005, Watchdog or demagogue? The media in the Chinese legal system, Columbia Law Review, 105

Wang, 2005, Lu meiti (Green Media)

Ellmann, 1986, Lawyers and clients, UCLA Law Review, 34

Oi, 1999, Rural China Takes Off: Institutional Foundations of Economic Reform, 10.1525/9780520922402

2001, Zhongguo huanjing nianjian (China Environment Yearbook)

Litzenger, 2007, Grassroots Political Reform in Contemporary China, 282, 10.4159/9780674042056-013

10.1111/j.1469-8676.2008.00057.x

10.1093/lawfam/ebn016

Thông tin
Thông tin xuất bản

China Quarterly

Tập 206

294-312

Thông tin tác giả