Environmental Justice and Law: China and the World A Thematic Issue of The Chinese Journal of Comparative Law Call for Papers

In recent years, China is often in the headlines around the world for environment related issues, for instance, air quality and air pollution in major Chinese cities, China’s greenhouse gas emissions, wildlife trafficking and threat of extinction of animal species such as African elephants and rhinos due to the Chinese demand for the animals’ body parts, and the current coronavirus outbreak  reportedly linked to wildlife consumption in Wuhan, and China’s discontinuation of buying recyclable wastes from other countries, throwing some western countries into recycling crisis and making people in the West becoming aware of the problems associated with their own lifestyles and habits such as the excessive production of plastic wastes choking seas and rivers and threatening marine species and doing lasting damage to the our blue Planet. So, in today’s world, the damage to the natural ecosystem and the destruction of and crimes against nature and animals is not just a China problem, or China’s doing alone. It is a humankind induced global threat, threatening all lives, human and nonhuman on our planet. All humans and all human societies are culprits, although some may be more culpable than others.

China, like most countries in the world today, has laws and regulations on environmental and wildlife protection. In 2018, China added the phrase ‘ecological civilization’ (whatever it may mean yet to be ascertained) to the Constitution. How we view and assess such laws and their implementation, and what progress or lack thereof that has been made in the legal arena in the efforts to protect the environment and animals, what challenges there are presently and into the future  will be the focus of an upcoming thematic issue on environmental justice and law in China and the world to be published in The Chinese Journal of Comparative Law (CJCL) (https://academic.oup.com/cjcl, published by the Oxford University Press).

 

For this thematic issue, we now call for submission of abstracts/papers and invite scholars to address wide-ranging topics related to the environmental law and implementation in China and the world, both pragmatic and theoretical discussions welcome and preferably from a comparative legal perspective. Some suggested areas include: Chinese environmental law, regulation and policies, environmental litigation, environment/nature/animal/human relationships in relation to law, environmental and wildlife protection, legal boundaries between humans and nature/animals, environmental and social justice, eco-socio-legal study of nature, techno-scientific developments in relation to environmental law, regulation related to climate change, sustainability and renewable energy, and ethical-legal-philosophical status of the environment etc in relation to China and Chinese culture.  Other comparative studies which not necessarily involve Chinese law as a direct comparator, but nonetheless beneficial to China in terms of generating ideas and providing benchmarks or possible models in environmental law are also welcome.

 

The thematic issue will be guest edited by Prof Deborah Cao (Griffith University, Australia). Initial expression of interest and abstract (about 300 words) should be sent to Deborah Cao at d.cao@Griffith.edu.au. The full paper should not in principle exceed 10,000 Words (not including footnotes). All the papers will be refereed.

 

Important Dates:

Deadline for abstract submission:   1 June 2020.

Notification of acceptance:  30 June 2020.

Deadline for full paper submission: 31 October 2021.

The issue is expected to be published in 2022.

 

For style guide and other information about the Chinese Journal of Comparative Law, please visit the Journal’s website: https://academic.oup.com/cjcl