Civil Substantive Freedom and Environmental Protection

JIN Hai (Law School of Hohai University, Nanjing 210098, China)

Abstract: Substantive freedom is the core concept of the theory of Development as Freedom by Amartya Sen. In view of the instrumental role of substantive freedom, development of the civil political freedom is an effective way to solve the serious government failure in environment management; development of substantive freedom involving civil economic conditions and social opportunities will not only improve the civil environmental awareness and civil ability for environmental protection, but also be available to control population growth and reduce environmental pressure. The top-to-bottom environmental protection campaign developed in China requires a broad and firm social foundation, where a necessary way for it is to expand various civil substantive freedoms.

Key words: substantive freedom; environmental protection; social foundation

In 1999, the famous scholar Amartya Sen, who was Noble Prize Winner of 1998, proposed the theory of Development as Freedom, which “produces a revolutionary effect on development theory and practice” (evaluated by former General Secretary of UN Kofi Annan), and depicts a clear blueprint to achieve idealistic society for countries all over the world, especially for countries from the Third World. The core concept of such theory-substantive freedom, points out the realistic problems existing in China environmental protection, but also shows the direction for future work of China environmental protection.

1. Connotation of Substantive Freedom

Substantive freedom is the capability to enjoy that life cherished by individuals for some reasons, which “represents the various combinations of functionings (beings and doings) that an individual is possible to achieve.” “The substantive freedoms include basic capabilities to avoid sufferings, such as hunger, undernourishment, escapable morbidity & premature mortality, to overcome illiteracy, prevent censorship, & to participate politically. etc.” (Armartya Sen, 2002) In modern society, value pluralism has already become an unavoidable fact for human beings, so an idealistic society is the one that every member of the society lives an idealistic life. Although an idealistic society does not guarantee that each one will achieve his idealistic life, it is available to supply the prerequisite condition. Such prerequisite condition is the substantive freedom that Armartya Sen pays attention to, especially on some basic substantive freedoms.

In his view of Development as Freedom, Armartya Sen proposed two fundamental propositions: (1) Freedom is the first destination of development. This proposition distinguishes himself from other perspectives on development, such as development means growth of GNP or personal income, or advance of industrialization or technology. Armartya Sen points out, other perspectives on development focuses on certain particular instruments, while development as freedom directly places human beings into the centre of development-concentrating on the substantive freedoms of human beings. Therefore, development as freedom is consistent with the scientific development based on human policy, which exerts important instructions for the China’s Construction of harmonious society. Substantive freedom is the major means for development. In his proposition, Armartya Sen strengthens the instrumental role that substantive freedom plays in human development. In Sen’s view, he thinks that substantive freedoms include at least five kinds of instrumental freedoms: political freedom, economic conditions, social opportunities, transparency guarantees and protective safeguard. In addition, these five kinds of freedoms are complementary to each other. Political freedom is the opportunity held by people to decide who will govern the government and the principles to govern, also includes supervision and critic of the authority, freedom of political expression and discussion and possibility to select different political parties, etc. Economic facilities are the opportunities for an individual to use his economic resources for the purpose of consumption, production and exchange. Social opportunities mean the arrangement on social education, medical health care and other aspects, which influence an individual’s substantive freedom for a better life. Transparency guarantees involves the requirement from the public for openness: that is, to freely make business under such conditions with disclosed and clear information. Protective safeguard is the economic remedy or other kinds of remedy from society for individuals when the citizens are suffered from acts of god or other emergency disasters. (Armartya Sen, 2002)

Sen divides substantive freedom into two aspects, namely process and opportunity, in which the former concentrates on the process to ensure freedom of actions and decisions, such as political freedom; while the latter focuses on the opportunities that people have enjoyed provided by a given individual and social circumstance, such as social opportunities and protective safeguard. The classification of which divided by Sen demonstrates a comprehensive yet complete connotation meaning of substantive freedom. However, the laissez-faire neglects such freedom on social opportunities, and the utilitarianism lacks enough concentration on freedom in process aspect.

In the above five instrumental freedoms proposed by Sen, transparency guarantees mainly involves the public policy of government information and citizen’s right to know, which is inter-connected with civil political freedom; protective safeguard belongs to the basic category of civil social security, therefore, it may be considered as a kind of social opportunity. In this paper, the author tries to explore the inter-connections between civil substantive freedom and environmental protection primarily in view of civil political freedom, economic conditions and social opportunities.

2. Civil Political Freedom and Environmental Protection

It has been generally considered that environmental problems are resulted from two factors: market failures and government failures. Government failures include the irregular governmental behaviors as well as inappropriateness and faults in government making decisions and .exercising its authority. Government failures has become one of the most direct and greatest root causes for environmental problems on the point of its actual impact, for a fault decision once made by the government is hard to be remedied and will cause even higher impact than that of enterprises by reason of its comprehensive, long and profound impact caused by governmental behaviors ( Li Qijia,2008) .The government failures are mainly caused by its limited neutral. The government is a ultra-benefit organization with its own interest. As the officials of the state who make and enact policies, they also have their benefit side and their will also pursue their own interest. Due to the special status that the government and its officials situated in social and economic life, they usually make profits for its respective institution in the name of social welfare by implementation of public administration. Plenty of local governments pursue the growth of GDP unilaterally while ignore and even disturb implementation of environmental laws; bureau of environmental protection or cadres contributing in poisonous plants, there are reports constantly occurred on various newspapers and media like some state officials making profit by his rights owned, officials and businessmen corrosively intertwined, large misuse or deprivation of natural resources. It fully proves that government failures exist objectively and universally. Inappropriateness and faults in environmental decisions and excise of its right by the state is the second type of government failures, whose root cause lies in the sate limitation on reason, ability and flexibility. Due to its restrictions on information, thinking and ability, the government behavior only achieves a management effect of environment that very closing to the optimal. Since environmental problems own a serials of features such as complicatedness, invariability, confliction and uncertainty, environmental management should be a dynamic adaptive management, in which the government shall observe the following issues with the people in certain districts whom will be influenced by a prospective policy and plan and on the principle of public participation and respecting local knowledge: (1) to classify the problem more effectively; (2) to obtain the information and knowledge out of scientific field; (3) to seek other ways accepted by the society; (4) to create a master awareness to implement the programs and solutions (Bruce Mitchell, 2004).

In light of the current situations of environmental protection, the availability to effectively respond to and resolve government failures in environmental management, to some extent, decides whether China will succeed in environmental protection undertaking. Then, how to deal with government failures? As a matter of fact, whether to avoid government failures or to study from the inner requirement of environmental protection, only to establish a subjectivity status of citizen, to expend the civil political right and freedom, to ensure the environmental information utterly, timely and effectively disclosed, and to guarantee the civil right to know about environment and decision participation in environmental affairs, can the government failures be resolved. The environmental democracy and the sustainable development in economy and society are available to be achieved only through a right-check-power system. The book “Our Common Future” which produced profound influence upon world environmental protection process, believes that “a political system that guarantees citizens to effectively participate in making decisions” is the first fundamental prerequisite for sustainable development(World Commission on Environment and Development,1997).In 2002, the World Summit on Sustainable Development held in Johannesburg of South Africa believes that “Good governance within each country and at the international level is essential for sustainable development” [1]. “Peace, security, stability and respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, including the rights to development, as well as respecting cultural diversity, are essential for achieving sustainable development and ensuring that sustainable development benefits all.” [2] Principle 10 of “Rio Declaration on Environment and Development” points out that, “Environmental issues are best handled with participation of all concerned citizens, at the relevant level. At the national level, each individual shall have appropriate access to information concerning the environment that is held by public authorities, including information on hazardous materials and activities.” It’s obvious that, plenty of international documentation has already paid attention on the inter-connections between civil political freedom and environmental protection.

3 Civil Economic Facilities and Environmental Protection

Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) has figuratively depicted the relationship between civil economic income and environmental protection. EKC theory shows a inverted U-shaped curve between the movement trend of most pollutants and that of per capital of national income, that is, in the initial development stage, the level of pollution is increasing with the growth of per capital of income; when the per capital of income reaches a certain level, the level of pollution will be decreasing. Currently, the objectivity of EKC has been empirically proved by research both in domestic and abroad level. Some scholars point out that, with the growth of income, people will automatically seek for a “better environment”; the higher the income becomes, the greater for the requirement. Therefore, environmental quality is deemed to be “Luxury Goods”, which means the income elasticity under high income is higher than that of under low income. With the growth of income, people will take the initiative, environment-friendly measures or choose that is helpful to environment from personal consumption perspective（Lidan, et al.,2004）. The analysis made by the scholars above is persuasive, because abundance is green, while poverty is not. “For the poor people, an elephant is a pile of meat, a whale is an oil drum and the rain forestry is a place to plant cassavas after shooting monkeys and clearing the woods.” “The poor people care about what they will get today from natural resources, but not to protect the environment for the sake of tomorrow.” The World Summit on Sustainable Development of 2002 believes that, “Eradicating poverty is the greatest global challenge imposed on the world today and an indispensable requirement for sustainable development, particularly for the developing countries.” [3] Principle 5 of “Rio Declaration on Environment and Development” points out that, “All States and all people shall cooperate in the essential task of eradicating poverty as an indispensable requirement for sustainable development.” A great many other international declarations also deem eradicating poverty as an important prerequisite for sustainable development.

It deserves to point out that, economic facilities not just mean the economic income earned by citizens, but also include market system. Although market failures are one of the causes for environmental issues, with the broad adoption of economic instruments such as emission trading rights and environmental taxes in environmental protection, market system has been considered by scholars as the best way to protect and improve environment. The reason is that market system is available to reduce the cost of implementation of environmental law to a greater extent, and to achieve the best “benefit” with the minimum cost. The increasing attention on the role that market system has played in environmental protection by many developed countries has fully showed that market system is not “contradictory” with environmental protection; to the opposite, it has become one of the important ways to protect the environment. In many circumstances, market failures are not the problems of the market itself, but the exertion of market needs certain conditions as its prerequisite. “The entire achievement of market deeply depends on the arrangement of politics and society (Armartya Sen, 2002). ”

4. Civil Social Opportunity and Environmental Protection

The civil social opportunity includes opportunities for education and employment and social security opportunity for pension, medical care. The lack of social opportunity, together with low level of income, deeply influences individual requirement elasticity for a “better environment”. On the other hand, it also restrains the environmental awareness, which is the necessary prerequisite to produce initiative behaviors for environmental protection.

Firstly, environmental awareness is a scientific awareness based on understanding of the fundamental knowledge of environmental science; it also includes awareness of unexpected development, perception of environmental pollution and destroyed ecology including the alert for the existed harm, as well as for that of possible potential harm; it also requires the awareness of environmental laws. It is the central process of environmental awareness. It also shows the union and manifestation of recognition and action on laws keeping, understanding and implementing of environmental protection; at last, environmental awareness requires people to reach the highest state of awareness of environmental ethics. At that time, people will automatically cultivate the behavior awareness and habits required by environmental protection under no exterior pressures. Only when the above factors are available will people hold a sense of responsibility and mission from inner heart, and take part in environmental protection activities( Chen Shuoqing et al., 1996). The deterioration of environment in developing countries is directly connected with the weak environmental awareness. As a large developing country, China is no exception. In view of the content of environmental awareness, though environmental education is important, the literacy level as well as economic income and subjectivity awareness are the important foundations to establish environmental awareness. However, the fundamental way to improve such is to completely develop various substantive freedoms in politics, economy and society.

The significance of expanding social opportunity for environmental protection can be proved by its role in controlling the growth of population. There are two contradictory viewpoints in terms of the relationship between the growth rate of population and the substantive freedoms. One argues that, the voluntary reduction of birth rate will lead to reduction of entire population, with social development and improvement of women’s education; the other holds that, the population will not be reduce until natural restriction is employed, that is, the growth of population leads to reduction of living level. It not only results in rapid increase of death, and forces family scale shortened by reason of economic poverty. The representative scholar for the former viewpoint is Condorcet, while the latter is Malthus. However, “The world history does not give much support for Malthus, for the birth rate is dramatically reduced with social and economic development, which has happened in Europe and North America, and is occurring in many Asian regions and Latin America with certain extent. The countries with the worst status of birth rate, especially the countries in the south of Sahara, keep their highest level with relative steadiness. All such countries yet have not witnessed much development in economy and society. They are still in poverty, and their basic education, medical care and life expectancy are all in under-development circumstances(Armartya Sen,2002).”

The World Summit on Sustainable Development of 2002 proposes that, “Develop national programs for sustainable development and local and community development… These programs should reflect their priorities and enable them to increase access to productive resources, public services and institutions, in particular land, water, employment opportunities, credit, education and health;” [4] and points out, “Education is critical for promoting sustainable development. It is therefore essential to mobilize necessary resources…, Meet the development goal contained in the Millennium Declaration of achieving universal primary education; Provide all children, particularly those living in rural areas and those living in poverty, especially girls, with the access and opportunity to complete a full course of primary education;” [5] The Sustainable Declaration and Its Implementation Plan represents human’s newest understanding of sustainable development and environmental protection. The Declaration not only realized that democratic politics and eradication of poverty are the significant prerequisite for sustainable development, but also the important roles that social development has played upon environmental protection and population control.

5. Conclusion

With thirty years of “explosive” development, China has gained great progress in environmental legislation, whose system is close to approximate perfection. However, coincidently, as the legislations have been modified from time to time, some of the environmental legislations are still not available for practices. It’s no doubt that the Deputy Minister of Environment Department states that “Though we have plenty of legislations, most of them are not available.” The establishment of China’s environmental legislation has basically solved the problem of “without legislation for implementation”, while the problem of “failure in implementation and omission in implementation” is still be resolved. The problem of “failure in implementation and omission in implementation” has become the major one for environmental legislation in China, which results from the following two factors: firstly, short of motivation from local government. Under the background that cadres are selected mainly by appointment, the biggest motivation for various levels of government is to fulfill the indicators of performance evaluation forwarded by upper government, but not to supply public service for local people. In the back this background, it shows the loss of civil political freedom; secondly, short of motivation from common citizens. The short of motivation from common citizens has two related reasons. Firstly, the weak environmental awareness does not produce an urgent need for a “better environment”; secondly, the citizens do not have related rights to be informed and right to participate in decision in environment. Therefore, the miss of civil substantive freedoms is an important factor for the short of motivation.

In fact, the development process of civil substantive freedoms is also the improving process of civil environmental awareness and environmental protection capability. The EKC curve only reflects the relationship between growth of economic income and improvement of environment, rather than the inter-connection between substantive freedoms and environmental protection. It is of one-sidedness. In addition to the growth of income, the development of substantive freedoms also contributes to the formation of civil environmental awareness and improvement of environmental protection capability. The substantive freedom of citizens is the foundation of civil capability to protect environment and civil responsibility. The miss of substantive freedom will result in the top-down environmental protection campaign becoming a mere formality. Therefore, when we impose various responsibilities and obligations on citizens, it’s necessary to care about their substantive freedoms enjoyed. Armartya sen points out that, “Responsibility is based on freedom. A person will not be responsible for one thing if without substantive freedoms and capabilities for that. However, if one has substantive freedoms and capabilities for one thing, he is imposed on the obligations to think about that thing, which involves individual responsibility. In this sense, freedom for responsibility is necessary and sufficient(Armartya Sen,2002). ” The insight by Armartya Sen clearly points out the relationship between substantive freedoms and responsibility. It’s obvious that such relationship still exists in the process to improve environmental protection. The top-down environmental protection campaign requires broad and firm social foundation, for which to expand substantive freedoms is the necessary way.

References:

1. Armartya Sen,2002．Development as Freedom．Translated by Renze and Yuzhen． China Renmin University Press, 63-285(in Chinese)．

2. Li Qijia. Outline for Benefit Analysis of Environmental La．http://www.riel.whu.edu.cn/show.asp?ID=1276，2008-1-5(in Chinese)．

3. Bruce Mitchell, 2004. Resource and Environment Management, Translated by Cai Yunlong. Commercial Press ,284(in Chinese)．

4. World Commission on Environment and Development,1997．Our Common Future, Translated by Wan Zhijia．Jilin Renmin Press, 80(in Chinese)．

5. Lidan et al.,2004．The Influence of Social Development upon Environmental Quality—Domestic and Abroad Advances in EKC. Journal of Ecology,（6）：1260－1266(in Chinese).

6. Chen Shuoqing et al., 1996.Mechanisms of Environmental Awareness and Cultivation. Environmental Education, (4）：3-4(in Chinese).

Introduction about Author: Jin Hai (1968-), Male, from Tianchang City of Anhui Province, currently as Deputy Director and Associate Professor of Environmental Law Research Institute of School of Law of Hohai University, Doctor of Laws, main research direction: Environment and Resources Protection Law.

作者简介：晋海（1968-），男，河海大学法学院环境与资源法研究所副所长，副教授，法学博士，主要研究方向：环境与资源保护法。Email: njjinhai@yahoo.com.cn，通迅地址：河海大学法学院，邮编：210098。

[1]《World Summit On Sustainable Development Plan Of Implementation》Provision 4

[2]《World Summit On Sustainable Development Plan Of Implementation》Provision 5

[3]《World Summit On Sustainable Development Plan Of Implementation》Provision7.

[4]《World Summit On Sustainable Development Plan Of Implementation》Provision 7 Section (C).

[5]《World Summit On Sustainable Development Plan Of Implementation》Provision 109.