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The Legal Obstacle Course
Disputes over environmental rights in China will only
become more serious, and they are increasingly being settled by legal
and criminal justice institutions. Common criminal charges for defending
such rights are “disrupting social order,” usually by gathering a crowd
for a protest, and “disrupting official business” through hindering a
development project or commercial enterprise. In enforcing the law,
local party secretaries above all have a mandate to maintain order in
society, and their almost total control over police and courts helps
them implement this mandate liberally. More often than ever, those
defending the environment are ending up detained by the police or
imprisoned by a Chinese court.
In this scenario, of major importance is how officials
provide—or restrict—political space for rights defenders who report on
activities that wreak havoc on the country’s environment. With the
public blessing of national leaders, Chinese environmental rights
defenders can enjoy some freedom to write opinion pieces, hold forums,
and organize groups. This kind of open activism is unheard of for
Chinese activists involved with overtly (or obliquely) political or
religious causes. Chinese authorities may be more accepting of
environmental rights work because they do not perceive the field’s
activists to be “democracy seekers” with political goals.
But despite a degree of free rein, there are limits to
public expression for environmental rights defenders. They can meander
into murky ground where the grip of the public security police tightens
quickly or the appropriate legal responses to rights movements are
unclear. In part, this is because organized, non-governmental
environmental advocacy in China is relatively new, and regulations on
handling mass protests so often used in these campaigns are not always
applied consistently. Most citizens also are not well aware of
environmental laws that can help protect them or are frustrated by the
legal process they must go through to defend their rights. In addition,
even sympathetic authorities may still be figuring out how to monitor
environmental activism or punish rights defenders who they feel run
afoul of the law.
It is not unusual for officials, particularly on the
local level, to stifle environmental advocacy not by sorting out legal
ambiguities but instead by hiding shady deals that they have cut with
companies whose activities harm the environment. Threatened by rights
campaigns that can reach the highest rungs of government in Beijing,
local officials may find that the easiest way to keep their positions is
to harass or otherwise derail those fighting for environmental rights,
which often allows the ecological damage to continue.
Nature’s Defense in the Courts
Compared to risks assumed by common citizen activists,
who tend to lack political leverage and legal knowledge, some Chinese
lawyers have had better luck defending victims of environmental damage.
They are seen by authorities, especially in Beijing, as go-betweens who
can help the government enforce laws and maintain social order. Lawyers
have plenty of raw materials to work with; China has ample environmental
laws on the books, and criminal penalties for polluters were enacted in
1997. If a company is found guilty of breaking environmental laws, a
heavy fine or factory closure is not only a feather in the government’s
cap but, as importantly, can halt protests over a controversial problem.
The Center for Legal Assistance to Pollution Victims (CLAPV)
is the only registered organization in China that specifically provides
legal services for those seeking justice from the effects of pollution.
The center mostly assists farmers whose livelihoods have been lost. Wang
Canfa, a law professor, directs the Beijing-based center and is perhaps
the best-known environmental attorney in China. Among many of CLAPV’s
victories, one of its associates recently won a lawsuit against a
company in Fujian Province which compensated over 1,600 villagers for
toxic pollution of their water supply and land. Though still quite new
to China, legal work of this sort supplements increasing government
action to issue heavy fines and close down thousands of polluters all
over the country.
Instead of
providing justice, however, court verdicts that dole out compensation
can come at a price to citizen rights. Such a system often only placates
environmental victims, many of whom receive woefully inadequate
compensation, and can undermine their ability to learn about their
rights. One result is a perpetual reliance on legal and criminal justice
officials to come to their defense—even when these officials may be
colluding with the very institutions and companies that are causing
environmental damage. These kinds of limitations are a major obstacle to
rights advocacy, given the number of citizens with grievances about
environmental problems in China.
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