China Environmental Law

The Ministry of Environmental Protection has issued a Notice (Chinese only version here; accompanying Q&A here) which sets forth a regulatory opinion on the imposition of administrative punishment in environmental cases.
The Opinion reiterates some basic points, includes some significant new interpretations, and generally provides a welcome clarification of many of the issues surrounding the imposition [...]

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The Kuwait Petroleum Corporation and Sinopec proposed in 2005 to build a petrochemical refinery in Guangzhou.1  The facility will process “15 million tones of oil a year and produce 800,000 tonnes of ethylene.” 2  The Nansha District, an island at the mouth of the Pearl River, was selected as the location for the facility.  The [...]

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The Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) completed the establishment of its regional supervision centers with the opening of the sixth center, the North China Supervision Center, on December 17, in, strangely, Beijing.  The centers, established over the course of the last several years are:
North China (Beijing)
Northeast China (Shenyang)
Northwest China (Xian)
East China (Nanjing)
South China (Guangzhou)
Southwest China [...]

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My friend and fellow environmental lawyer, Dayton Carpenter, forwarded me an article that says nothing about, yet speaks volumes, regarding the state of environmental enforcement in China.
Last month in Chongqing, 100+ police investigated 873 suspects over 10 days before issuing warrants for the arrest of two people.  Chongqing’s top communist official, Bo Xilai, “a rising political star [...]

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