Law School professor and students publish article in Brazil about the ecological civilization

发布时间:2022-01-28 字体大小 T |T

Professor Douglas de Castro and the students Siyi Zhang and Chen Daoshan, all from the School of Law – Lanzhou University, published January 13 an opinion article on the most prestigious Brazilian legal website – Conjur.

 

The article's title is 'The Chinese Constitutional Concept of Ecological Civilization,' available on https://www.conjur.com.br/2022-jan-13/opiniao-conceito-civilizacao-ecologica-constituicao-china (in Portuguese only).

 

The article presents the conundrum that humankind faces nowadays: at the same time that recognizes the existential threat that the degradation of the environment poses, at the international level of institutions, the responses lack effectiveness.

 

Authors respond to this puzzle by arguing that the Chinese ecological civilization concept reduces the interpretative meaning of the concepts of nature and environment, thus, providing a critical ontological contribution to International Environmental Law, thus, providing more traction in this urgent matter. They depart in their analysis from President Xi Jinping's speech in the session of the Political Bureau of the 18th CCP on May 24, 2013: 'We must raise awareness of the need to respect, protect, and accommodate ourselves to nature, follow the basic state policy of resource conservation and environmental protection, and give high priority to conserving, protecting the environment and promoting its natural restoration.'

 

Then, the authors present an inventory of the significant legal changes that make it possible for China to avert the degradation of the environment and become a paradigm in this field. For them, the Constitution currently forms a relatively complete normative system of 'ecological civilization development' by normative and substantive regulation, citing 1) the 'New Development Philosophy,' 'ecological civilization,' 'beautiful China,' 'a great modern socialist country' and 'realize the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation' in the preamble of the Constitution; 2) Articles 9, 10, and 26 in the 'General Principles' of the Constitution are general provisions for macro-control of the ecological environment; and 3) the State Council's power of 'directing and managing ecological conservation' in Article 89 of the Constitution.

 

Addressing the subject at the empirical level, the authors present the Five-sphere Integrated Plan and the Ecological Red Line as the operationalization of the legal provisions towards compliance with the ecological goals at the national stance, thus, demonstrating its hard commitment to the obligations assumed in the international forum.

 

Authors conclude that China is becoming an agenda-setting country in the international system, making significant contributions to the global governance on the environment, which somehow has a solid potential to increase the regulatory efficiency of International Environmental Law by incorporating alternative worldviews and values that up to now are being excluded by traditional International Law, a Eurocentric product.

 

The article published by the academics from Law School resonates positively among the legal community in Brazil, as it has been re-published in several specialized websites (https://www.ecodebate.com.br/2022/01/17/a-constituicao-da-china-e-o-conceito-de-civilizacao-ecologica/;https://eco21.eco.br/o-conceito-de-civilizacao-ecologica-na-constituicao-da-china/;https://blogdopedlowski.com/2022/01/11/a-constituicao-da-china-e-o-conceito-de-civilizacao-ecologica%EF%BF%BC/ ).

 

In addition, a publication that discusses the units of conservation in the Amazon Region, pointing out the ecological civilization as a paradigm to be followed, cited the article written by the author (https://www.conjur.com.br/2022-jan-25/keutenedjian-mady-terras-indigenas-unidades-conservacao-amazonia - Portuguese only).   

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