The End of a Decade and the Dawn of a Climate Resistance

Etty, Thijs; Heyvaert, Veerle; Carlarne, Cinnamon Piñon; Huber, Bruce; Peel, Jacqueline; Zeben, Josephine van

doi:10.1017/s2047102520000035

Cited by 4 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 21 publications

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“…A recent Transnational Environmental Law editorial identifies the present as the dawn of a climate resistance movement. 74 So, too, in China. The supremacy of the State Council in mastering China's climate is not free from challenges and resistance by the state-owned energy and oil giants.…”

Section: mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Rule of Climate Policy: How Do Chinese Judges Contribute to Climate Governance without Climate Law?

Zhu¹

2021

TEL

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China's climate governance is distinguished by the contrast between an abundance of policies on climate change and the lack of legally binding laws. This article argues that Chinese courts bridge this difference, which fosters a ‘rule of climate policy’ rather than a strict rule of law. The effective authority of Chinese climate policy is made possible in practice both by provisions of the Chinese Constitution and the prevailing use of legal reasoning. China's constitutional design of ‘ecological civilization’ delegates the duty and the power of managing climate change issues to the executive branch of its government. Most Chinese documents on climate governance have no binding legal force, which means, according to positive law, that they cannot serve as legal grounds for judicial decisions. Chinese judges, in deciding climate-related disputes, must combine legal provisions and non-binding materials to achieve regulatory goals. They use non-legal materials to support statutory or contractual interpretations and determine the existence or limits of rights, which alters the meaning and scope of existing legal terms and principles. This rule of climate policy is possible in the courtroom because judges justify public policy considerations with arguments of principle that are substantiated in various non-binding climate plans.

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Section: mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Rule of Climate Policy: How Do Chinese Judges Contribute to Climate Governance without Climate Law?

Zhu¹

2021

TEL

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Transnational Environmental Law in a Transformed Environment

Etty¹,

Heyvaert²,

Carlarne³

et al. 2020

TEL

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In our previous editorial we commented on the tumultuous end of a decade and the environmental, social, and legal challenges that await. 1 During the first four months of 2020 a global pandemic caused by the new coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, which can lead to the potentially deadly 'coronavirus disease 2019' (COVID-19), stormed onto this already daunting list of challenges. The urgency and all-encompassing nature of the effects of the pandemic has led it to overtake and complicate most other challenges in unpredictable and unprecedented ways. Soon after the presumed start of the pandemic in the Chinese province of Wuhan in December 2019, the Chinese government took quarantine measures that many considered draconian and possible only in a centrally controlled country such as China. 2 At the time of writing, April 2020, similar measures have been adopted and political decisions have been taken all over the world in ways that long seemed unimaginable in peacetime. At the moment, Europeespecially Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom (UK)and the United States (US) seem to be at the centre of the pandemic. However, cases are increasingly reported in the Middle East, Africa, and India, raising profound concerns regarding the ability of developed and less developed healthcare systems to cope with the severe adverse health effects of the virus. Mortality rates, also in countries with well-equipped and well-funded public health systems, have been disconcertingly high and infection rates difficult to lower without very invasive measures. The most common measures in place at the moment are various forms of 'lockdown', where freedom of movement is heavily curtailed, often allowing only those in 'essential' jobshealthcare, some parts of the food industry, postal servicesto

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