Cambridge Studies in Law and Society: Environmental Litigation in China: A Study in Political Ambivalence

This is a book about the improbable: seeking legal relief for pollution in contemporary China. In a country known for tight political control and ineffectual courts, Environmental Litigation in China unravels how everyday justice works: how judges make decisions, why lawyers take cases, and how international influence matters. It is a readable account of how the leadership's mixed signals and political ambivalence play out on the ground - propelling some, such as the village doctor who fought a chemical plant for more than a decade, even as others back away from risk. Yet this remarkable book shows that even in a country where expectations would be that law wouldn't much matter, environmental litigation provides a sliver of space for legal professionals to explore new roles and, in so doing, probe the boundary of what is politically possible.

1. Post-Mao: economic growth, environmental protection, and the law; 2. From dispute to decision; 3. Frontiers of environmental law; 4. Political ambivalence: the state; 5. On the front lines: the judges; 6. Heroes or troublemakers? The lawyers; 7. Soft support: the international NGOs; 8. Thinking about outcomes.