Environmental Litigation in China
A Study in Political Ambivalence

An account of everyday justice and the factors that shape it in the battle to seek legal relief for environmental pollution in China.

Rachel E. Stern (Author)

9781107020023, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 11 March 2013

314 pages, 1 b/w illus. 6 tables
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.9 cm, 0.59 kg

"In addition to the thoughtful narrative choices she makes (the book is replete with vivid anecdotes and examples), Stern writes in an extremely approachable manner. Her prose is precise, yet extremely engaging. She admirably avoids jargon. This makes Environmental Litigation in China far more accessible than most books on Chinese law. It will not only be stimulating for graduate students, but appropriate for upper-level undergraduates as well. It will appeal equally to legal scholars, China watchers in academic and in policy circles, and to those interested in law and society more generally."
Andrew Mertha, Cornell University, The China Quarterly

This is a book about the improbable: seeking legal relief for pollution in contemporary China. In a country known for tight political control and ineffectual courts, Environmental Litigation in China unravels how everyday justice works: how judges make decisions, why lawyers take cases, and how international influence matters. It is a readable account of how the leadership's mixed signals and political ambivalence play out on the ground - propelling some, such as the village doctor who fought a chemical plant for more than a decade, even as others back away from risk. Yet this remarkable book shows that even in a country where expectations would be that law wouldn't much matter, environmental litigation provides a sliver of space for legal professionals to explore new roles and, in so doing, probe the boundary of what is politically possible.

1. Post-Mao: economic growth, environmental protection, and the law
2. From dispute to decision
3. Frontiers of environmental law
4. Political ambivalence: the state
5. On the front lines: the judges
6. Heroes or troublemakers? The lawyers
7. Soft support: the international NGOs
8. Thinking about outcomes.

Subject Areas: International environmental law [LBBP], Law & society [LAQ]