Event Title
Environmental NGOs and Sustainable Development in China - Twenty Years after the Rio Conference
Location
Ceremonial Mootcourt Room
Start Date
3-7-2012 10:30 AM
End Date
3-7-2012 12:00 PM
Description
China’s participation in the Rio Conference on Environment and Development in 1992 has led to important reforms of its domestic environmental law and governance with increasing emphasis on sustainable development and public participation. Principle 10 of the Rio Declaration provides that “[e]nvironmental issues are best handled with participation of all concerned citizens, at the relevant level...” To honour its commitment to sustainable development, the State Council promulgated China’s Agenda 21 – White Paper on China’s Population, Environment, and Development in the 21st Century in 1994. It formally recognized the important value of environmental NGOs, emphasizing the essential need of public support and participation in order to achieve sustainable development (chapter 20). Sustainable development soon became the national strategy for implementation from central to local levels.
The international and domestic political and socio-economic context of the 1990s provided a golden opportunity for the emergence of green NGOs in China. A few environmental groups have survived and flourished, making substantial impact on China’s environmental decision making for a sustainable future. But, their success stories are not easily reproduced given the tight control by state regulation through the “dual control mechanism” and the constaints imposed by the socio-political reality. There is no complete freedom of association in establishment or full autonomy in operation.
This paper examines, through case studies, how some environmental NGOs have managed to expand the legal and polical boundary with changing agendas from educating the public through awareness campaigns and community programmes such as water-saving, bird-watching and tree-planting to public participation and supervision of government decision making. They have made effective use of the environmental legal development over the last twenty years to influence the outcomes of government decision-making and to supervise government and corporate behaviours. It argues that, twenty years after the Rio Conference, green NGOs in China have demonstrated their potential ability to become a reliable force to promote and monitor the implementation of sustainable development. Regretably, successful cases are small in number and do not represent the routine practice of a still weak and under-developed civil society in China. It is hoped that China’s commitment to sustainable development will lead to more political space for the civil society to develop sooner rather than later.
Environmental NGOs and Sustainable Development in China - Twenty Years after the Rio Conference
Ceremonial Mootcourt Room
China’s participation in the Rio Conference on Environment and Development in 1992 has led to important reforms of its domestic environmental law and governance with increasing emphasis on sustainable development and public participation. Principle 10 of the Rio Declaration provides that “[e]nvironmental issues are best handled with participation of all concerned citizens, at the relevant level...” To honour its commitment to sustainable development, the State Council promulgated China’s Agenda 21 – White Paper on China’s Population, Environment, and Development in the 21st Century in 1994. It formally recognized the important value of environmental NGOs, emphasizing the essential need of public support and participation in order to achieve sustainable development (chapter 20). Sustainable development soon became the national strategy for implementation from central to local levels.
The international and domestic political and socio-economic context of the 1990s provided a golden opportunity for the emergence of green NGOs in China. A few environmental groups have survived and flourished, making substantial impact on China’s environmental decision making for a sustainable future. But, their success stories are not easily reproduced given the tight control by state regulation through the “dual control mechanism” and the constaints imposed by the socio-political reality. There is no complete freedom of association in establishment or full autonomy in operation.
This paper examines, through case studies, how some environmental NGOs have managed to expand the legal and polical boundary with changing agendas from educating the public through awareness campaigns and community programmes such as water-saving, bird-watching and tree-planting to public participation and supervision of government decision making. They have made effective use of the environmental legal development over the last twenty years to influence the outcomes of government decision-making and to supervise government and corporate behaviours. It argues that, twenty years after the Rio Conference, green NGOs in China have demonstrated their potential ability to become a reliable force to promote and monitor the implementation of sustainable development. Regretably, successful cases are small in number and do not represent the routine practice of a still weak and under-developed civil society in China. It is hoped that China’s commitment to sustainable development will lead to more political space for the civil society to develop sooner rather than later.