China’s coal sector is the largest contributor to the country’s greenhouse gas emissions and a major cause of air pollution, which claims over 1 million lives annually. Long-term climate commitments include a target to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060, which entails between a 60–90 percent reduction in coal use by mid-century. Of the many challenges associated with this transition, addressing the dislocation of coal and fossil fuel workers is perhaps the most challenging. While there are recognized efforts to achieve a “just transition” that works for fossil communities and workers, practices to date in China do not fully prioritize these groups. The closest analogue to what will need to be achieved is the supplyside restructuring of mostly state-owned coal and other heavy industries concentrated in 2016–2018 and continuing to this day. The coal sector has shed over 2 million jobs since its recent peak of 2013—and, in contrast to earlier state-owned enterprise (SOE) reforms, did not result in widespread social unrest. Lessons were learned from earlier periods, and the increased institutionalization of labor contract law is a possible argument for the relatively smoother workforce reduction mandated by overcapacity reduction. In this brief commentary, we explore the workforce reduction strategies during this period and the legal basis for various practices adopted by SOEs.
As China continues to enhance its ecological civilization, emerging ecosystem laws have arisen. This paper aims to explore the characteristics of China’s emerging ecosystem laws as well as their practical application and challenges. The research focuses on two main backgrounds of these laws - the ecological civilization ideology that led to their emergence, and their legislative phases. This study primarily revolves around the legal characteristics and implementation challenges of the emerging ecosystem laws, recognizing the considerable innovation in legislating for large-scale ecosystems in China. The main challenge lies in the need for novel administrative and judicial coordination mechanisms across administrative regions and the detailed implementation of specific rules and regulations. By comparing these ecosystem laws to the legislation and governance of five representative large river basins in the United States, the research concludes that China’s emerging ecosystem laws are not fundamentally different from the watershed management laws and governance in the US. However, there is innovation in laws regarding other ecosystem types, such as the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. The key focus should be on coordinating current cross-administrative regional governance and judicial collaboration and innovating large-scale environmental regulatory measures to enhance the effectiveness of such laws in China.
Despite significant efforts towards decarbonization, China’s progress in climate legislation has been relatively slow. This paper explores China’s current climate laws and the institutional approach behind the legislating efforts, identifying a central challenge: the lack of coordination among laws enacted at different times with varied focuses. It argues that a dedicated climate law could enhance accountability for climate goals and address the gaps in climate litigation. The paper also reviews China’s lawmaking institutions, discussing the roles and interactions of key players in shaping climate governance. Additionally, it compares legislative models from other countries, proposing components that could be adapted for China. The paper concludes with recommendations for a comprehensive climate legislation framework in China.
As many people are currently discussing an important reform of international tax rules1 and the tensions surrounding Taiwan, it is worthwhile to consider the tax aspect of Taiwan’s relationship with the world. Legal rules govern both Taiwan’s outbound investment and inbound investment in Taiwan. Even the People’s Republic of China (P.R.C., zhonghua renmin gonghe guo, or 中華人民共和國) receives Taiwan’s outbound investment, and Taiwan receives inbound investment from the P.R.C. At a time when tit-for-tat politics catches almost all the attention, a less well-known aspect of international law demonstrates both acause for optimism and a problem. Taiwan has its own legal rules, and Taiwan has bilateral treaties or agreements with its friends. However, when there are multilateral efforts to face the challenges of an important issue, Taiwan has often been left out. This article discusses Taiwan’s engagement with the world tax order. Part I sets out Taiwan’s legal rules regarding income tax. Part II discusses Taiwan’s thirty-five bilateral treaties or agreements with its friends. Part III introduces the P.R.C. tax law and the U.S. tax law for cross-border activities that implicate Taiwan. Part IV discusses some major multilateral efforts to reform the international tax system, and the creativity that may be required for Taiwan to be included. Overall, this article discusses Taiwan’s engagement with the world tax order.
Over the last two decades, China has undergone an extraordinary transformation in environmental law and governance that remains insufficiently understood in the outside world. In April 2024, the UCLA Pacific Basin Law Journal and the Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at UCLA School of Law held a symposium on China & the Environment – Taking Stock of Domestic and Global Developments in Law & Governance. Leading Chinese environmental law scholars, Chinese civil society actors, and international scholars gathered to shed light on cutting edge developments.2 As part of the symposium, UCLA Law also organized a public talk on Chinese Environmental Civil Society to explore the continuing role of environmental non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Chinese environmental protection.
The article critically examines the role of environmental law in China’s state-capitalist system from a structural Marxist perspective. The author argues that the Chinese environmental regulatory regime, often perceived as arbitrary and chaotic, is not a mere byproduct of a developing legal system but a deliberate strategy to legitimize state authority and control. Through case studies on integrated water resources management and the prevention of husbandry waste pollution, the article illustrates how environmental laws serve as both Repressive State Apparatuses (RSA) and Ideological State Apparatuses (ISA), enforcing social control and shaping public consciousness. The state’s top-down enforcement methods, reliance on technocratic solutions, and manipulation of legal and moral ideologies are shown to maintain and obscure the relations of production, reinforcing the state capitalist model of accumulation. The article also explores how China’s cultural products like the film, The Wandering Earth, normalize authoritarian state authority in global environmental governance. The analysis concludes that to fully understand China’s environmental governance, one must view it through the lens of state-capitalist accumulation, recognizing the role of environmental law in maintaining authoritarian state-society relations and shaping the broader political-economic landscape.
This article outlines the three stages of the development of China’s environmental law. It emphasizes the current stage, which is characterized by the holistic perspective rooted in traditional Chinese philosophy and integrated with the theory of sustainable development. It examines the evolution of China’s environmental legislation, administration, and judiciary within this framework. This article argues that China’s environmental legislation has transitioned from fragmentation to systematization; administrative enforcement departments have optimized functions through institutional and mechanism reforms; and the specialization of the environmental judiciary and the application of environmental restorative justice principles in the adjudication of environmental cases have effectively improved both the efficiency and quality of case judgments.
This article starts by overviewing China’s implementation and enforcement framework for the Montreal Protocol. It then examines the incident of the unexpected CFC-11 emissions, including the discovery of illegal production, the ensuing debate at the Montreal Protocol, and China’s domestic and international responses. The next section traces subsequent reforms at the Montreal Protocol and China’s involvement in emerging unexpected emissions. The concluding section evaluates China’s efforts in enforcement capacity building and ongoing challenges it faces.
This short paper analyzes China’s new green energy cooperation. Its main aim is to describe the scope, characteristics, and key themes of energy cooperation programming. To do so, I draw upon a systematic review of China’s energy cooperation activities in Global South countries (building upon work in Harlan and Lu, 2022) and participant observation in three cooperation programs – two in 2023, and one in 2018. The findings reveal a diverse set of motivations of Chinese actors and organizations that are delivering cooperation activities, but also a shared focus on promoting China’s technocratic expertise and innovation in green energy. I then argue that, rather than view China’s energy cooperation efforts as “greenwashing,” a more effective response is to see them as openings for engagement and collaboration in advancing Global South sustainability transitions.
While Chinese environmental NGOs have made progress in internationalization, they also face various challenges. China’s increasingly important role in global production, consumption, trade, and investment underscores the importance of its NGOs in global environmental governance and sustainable development. Moreover, there is a growing demand from both domestic and international stakeholders for Chinese NGOs to engage in global dialogue and foster collaborative efforts. As a China-based non-governmental and non-profit environmental organization focusing on environmental and developmental issues, the Global Environmental Institute (GEI) has prioritized promoting harmonious development of investment, trade, and environment since its inception. Since 2007, GEI has conducted research, implemented demonstration projects, advocated for the Chinese government to formulate policies on overseas investment, enhanced environmental governance capacity in host countries, and provided recommendations for the environmental and social work of Chinese investment enterprises abroad. However, the journey has been marked by challenges including a lack of supportive policy framework, limited funding channels, and a shortage of institutional capacity and professionals. In response, this article proposes suggestions such as reformulating an overall strategy, planning, and incentive policy, encouraging multiple sources of funding, and developing an international environmental volunteer action plan. By addressing these challenges and promoting cooperation, Chinese environmental NGOs can play an even greater role in global environmental governance and contribute to global sustainable development.
This article endeavors to make three distinct contributions. First, this article focuses specifically on the perspective of Taiwan. The meanings of abortion vary in deferring cultural systems, and the norms vary significantly between countries. Nonetheless, in Taiwan, most scholars have a tendency to scrutinize and denounce domestic law through the lens of Western law, overlooking the disparities in the social and cultural foundations on which these two ledgal systems are built. To prevent replication of the previous research pattern of viewing Taiwan through a Western perspective, the legal system must be reexamined by taking into account Taiwan's social and cultural backgrounds. Therefore, this article chooses to focus on the locality of Taiwan. Second, this article wishes to present Taiwan’s experience and ongoing approach to addressing abortion issues as a model for other nations in the international community. Due to statehood disputes, Taiwan has not been featured or discussed in any international reports or documents pertaining to the legal framework of abortion, rendering it a crucial missing piece in the worldwidejigsaw puzzle of abortion laws. This article strives to remedy this gap by sharing Taiwan’s experience and progress in this field. Finally, Taiwan’s uniqueness lies in its foundation of Confucian culture as a social norm, while also embracing a strong emphasis on freedom and human rights. Through the development of the concept of abortion rights by the Taiwanese government and society and the context of discourse surrounding it, Taiwan showcases the feasibility of integrating Eastern traditional values with Western contemporary liberalism, allowing for coexistence and harmony.
This article analyzes the High Court of American Samoa’s 1980ruling in Craddick v. Territorial Registrar and compares the decision’sreasoning with preceding cases that had also evaluated the constitutionalityof racial restrictions under the equal protection guarantees of theFifth Amendment and Fourteenth Amendment. The article then comparesthe legal analysis used by the High Court in Craddick with the legalanalysis used by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in Wabol v. Villacrusis,a case that was based on similar facts and had a similar outcome toCraddick, but which relied on a different and completely incompatibleanalysis of the Constitution’s equal protection guarantees. Finally, thisarticle compares the legal analysis in Craddick with the Supreme Court’srecent decision in Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. Harvard and concludesthat if a challenge to Craddick were to make it into a federal courttoday, the Supreme Court’s analysis in Harvard would require that Craddickbe overturned.
This Article provides the first detailed description of gambling in American Samoa. In addition to being one of just five inhabited U.S. territories, American Samoa is one of only four U.S. jurisdictions that bans all forms of commercial gambling. As such, it offers a rare opportunity to examine gambling in an anti-gambling society. The fact that American Samoa is located thousands of miles from the U.S. mainland; relies heavily on customs that are quite foreign to most Americans; lacks any sort of system for reporting judicial decisions despite having courts that are precedent-based; and permits charitable gaming (even though it has become a cover for large-scale gambling operators) makes studying the territory even more valuable.
Although once seen as irrelevant to environmental protection, financial regulation has become a critical component of global climate change responses, as recognized by the Paris Agreement. In addition, climate change and related environmental risks, such as threats to biodiversity and natural resources, are now recognized as potentially financially material to companies, investors, and entire economies, as well as to sustainable development. For these reasons, China has joined the many other governments and international organizations worldwide who are actively engaged in promoting regulatory reforms and voluntary initiatives to advance a green finance transition.
After the UK published the UK Stewardship Code in 2010, several other jurisdictions followed suit and published their own versions of stewardship codes. The focus on institutional investor stewardship has become a global trend in recent years. In 2016, Taiwan joined the trend by launching the “Stewardship Principles for Institutional Investors” (Taiwan Stewardship Code). As the Taiwan Stewardship Code has been based on the UK Stewardship, this article first conducts a comparative analysis between the Taiwan and UK Stewardship Codes. To shed more light on the institutional investor stewardship in Taiwan, this article reviews the 2020 stewardship reports of all 153 signatories of the Taiwan Stewardship Code, which was exactly five years after the launch of the Taiwan Stewardship Code. Examining the signatories’ stewardship activities in several aspects, this article found that the signatories’ stewardship is far from satisfying, not only does the level of stewardship fall short of the Taiwan Stewardship Code’s expectations, but the signatories also have not been following the requirements of the Taiwan Stewardship Code. Based on these findings, it can be concluded that the Taiwan Stewardship Code has been ineffective in promoting stewardship among Taiwan institutional investors. To achieve that end, the Taiwan Stewardship Code will need to be revised significantly. This article proposes and analyzes several potential improvements to the Taiwan Stewardship Code making it more effective, so that it can ultimately strengthen Taiwan’s corporate governance system.
There is a rich literature that utilizes state, province, and other subregional data to evaluate the causes and effects of civil litigation. Yet, issues of spatial dependence are often neglected in this context. In the current study, we argue that civil litigation may be subject to spatial spillovers, in which litigation in one region influences litigation in nearby regions. We then test for spatial effects using six years (2011–2016) of province-level data from China. Our results provide strong evidence of jurisdiction-level spillovers, even after controlling for spatially correlated regressors and shocks. Additionally, we find that ignoring spatial processes can lead to a systematic underestimation of the influence of civil litigation determinants. of Civil Litigation Marginal Effects
In 2018, North Korean Leader Kim Jong-un expressed his desire to write a new history of Korean reunification. South Korean President Moon Jae-in reciprocated Kim’s desire in August 2019 when Moon set the ambitious deadline of the year 2045 for a peaceful reunification of the Koreas. The rhetoric of the two Koreas placed a renewed spotlight on the reunification of the Korean Peninsula. While contemporary literature on Korean reunification primarily focuses on the differences between the two Koreas, little attention has been paid to how a unified Korean identity can play a crucial rule in sustaining the reunification effort. This article seeks to bridge that gap by arguing that a unified Korea should be understood as a reimagined community of two distinct nations joined by a shared identity. To support this argument, this article looks first to the theoretical framework of Benedict Anderson’s Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism and applies the framework to the history of Korea’s shared identity. Second, the article analyzes the evolution of the national identities of both South Korea and North Korea since 1945, when the Koreas were divided along the thirty-eighth parallel. Third, the obstacles to reunification are examined. Finally, suggestions on how reunification of the two Koreas could be sustained through shared national identities are explored.
