Luo jia Lecture Series on

Environmental Law No. 88

Civil Society and Risk Regulation:

Insights from NGOs Efforts to Reduce Industrial Pollution

Kathinka Fürst

Lecture Topic: Civil Society and Risk Regulation: Insights from NGOs Efforts to Reduce Industrial Pollution

Speaker: Professor Kathinka Fürst

Moderator: HU Bin, Deputy Director of the RIEL, Wuhan University

Time:14:30-16:30; 18 April, 2019 (Thursday)

Venue: Room 325, Law School Building

Participants: All staff and students of the RIEL

Abstract: In the past decade the Chinese State has played a vital role in the development of a civil regulatory space for environmental NGOs, by, amongst others, introducing laws that grant citizens and social organizations the right to participate in public hearings, to obtain information related to environmental issues and to initiate environmental public interest litigation. The Chinese State clearly envisions a role for civil society in their recently proclaimed ‘war against pollution’. With a focus on civil non-state regulatory theoriesand based on insights from a study of twenty-seven environmental NGOs from fifteen different provinces in China, this presentation outlines the regulatory roles NGOs in China plays in regulation of industrial pollution, the Chinese characteristics of civil regulation and a number of theoretical implications derived from a study of civil regulation in an authoritarian state.

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Kathinka Fürst is the Associate Director of Environmental Research Center and Adjunct Assistant Professor at Duke Kunshan University. Dr. Fürst received her PhD degree at the Faculty of Law, University of Amsterdam and her MA degree at the Center from Environment and Development at the University of Oslo. She has a BA in Sinology from Beijing Language and Culture University. Her research generally looks at environmental regulation and justice in China.

The Luojia Lecture Series on Environmental Law is an academic platform organized by the Research Institute of Environmental Law (RIEL) of Wuhan University. It adheres to the principle of "equal emphasis on legal theory and practice, with a balance between legal authority and cutting-edge research." The Lecture Series invites legal theorists and practitioners, from China and other countries, to contribute presentations on the current problems and controversies in environmental law.