Du, Qun --- "Compliance and Enforcement Related to Mandatory Corporate Reporting Requirements: Is There a Future?" [2011] ELECD 329; in Paddock, Lee; Qun, Du; Kotzé, J. Louis; Markell, L. David; Markowitz, J. Kenneth; Zaelke, Durwood (eds), "Compliance and Enforcement in Environmental Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2011)

Book Title: Compliance and Enforcement in Environmental Law

Editor(s): Paddock, Lee; Qun, Du; Kotzé, J. Louis; Markell, L. David; Markowitz, J. Kenneth; Zaelke, Durwood

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781848448315

Section: Chapter 25

Section Title: Compliance and Enforcement Related to Mandatory Corporate Reporting Requirements: Is There a Future?

Author(s): Du, Qun

Number of pages: 12

Extract:

25. Environmental Public Participation in
China: A New Force for Environmental
Law Compliance and Enforcement?
QunDu*

1. INTRODUCTION

Recognition of the right of the public to participate in environmental decision
making in China has been a gradual process. In the mid-1990s new environmental
review laws opened the door to public involvement. These opportunities were
recently expanded through a state Decree. However, it is at the local level where the
right to public participation in environmental matters is becoming an important
element of environmental law .
When pollution hazards became apparent and environmental movements
began in the 1950s and 1960s in western countries, I China was still in a phase
dominated by agriculture in which environmental pollution was not yet a serious
social issue. With industrial development in the early 1970s, some pollution
incidents began affecting important rivers that supplied drinking water to major
cities including one well-known pollution case involving pollution of the Guan-
ting Reservoir,2 the drinking water supply for Beijing. Awakened by this incident
and others, the Chinese government started to pay attention to the issue, sending a
delegation to the UN conference on human and environment in 1972. In 1973, the
State Council (SC) held its first national conference on the environment, and in
1974 the SC set up its first environmental leadership group.3 These have become
historical milestones for environmental protection in China.
Since Deng Xiaoping's economic reform and openness policy started in the
1980s, the Chinese economy has dramatically expanded. In ...