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.

CV

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.