Ecological Civilization

Guide for Authors Submit to Ecol. Civiliz.

Comparative Environmental Law

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 June 2025.

Guest Editors (2)

Paul A. Barresi
Prof. Paul A. Barresi 
1. School of Arts, Sciences, and Education, Southern New Hampshire University, Manchester, New Hampshire, USA; 2. School of Law, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China
Interests: Comparative Environmental Law; Environmental Rule of Law; Environmental Politics; Public Policy, and Law; Sustainable Societies; Sustainability Education
Website: https://www.snhu.edu/about-us/faculty-at-snhu/fulbright-scholar-faculty
Tianbao Qin
Prof. Tianbao Qin 
Research Institute of Environmental Law, Wuhan University, Wuhan, China
Interests: Environmental Law and Policy; Climate and Energy Law and Policy; Nature and Biodiversity Conservation Law and Policy
Website: http://law.whu.edu.cn/info/1092/4021.htm

Topic Collection Information

Globalization has helped to give rise to unprecedented environmental challenges for human societies worldwide and to equally unprecedented incentives for those societies to learn from each other in crafting response strategies. Law-based strategies remain a popular option. Yet the field of comparative environmental law remains in its infancy, especially in the English-language literature. Penetrating scholarly analyses of U.S. and European Union environmental law abound in that literature, including in comparative perspective. Yet, the same is not true for the environmental law of most developing or transitional countries. For the latter groups of countries, most of the literature does not drill down deeply enough into any particular area of the law to make meaningful cross-country comparisons possible. This weakness is especially unfortunate to the extent that those comparisons might reveal links between the institutional and cultural contexts in which laws are made, implemented, and enforced, on the one hand, and the practical implications of those laws for the challenge of building sustainable societies, on the other. Instead, the literature cuts a wide swathe through environmental law in general and thus tends to resemble literature merely on policy rather than on law. This problem is compounded by the fact that the environmental laws of most developing and transitional countries have been inspired by their antecedents in developed countries. The result is an almost eerie consistency in environmental laws worldwide. This superficial consistency belies striking differences in how those laws function in practice, however. These differences in turn highlight the pressing need for richly contextual analyses of environmental law and its effectiveness as a strategy for building sustainable societies across a full spectrum of national institutional and cultural settings. This special issue of Ecological Civilization seeks to be a forum for scholarly analyses of this type, especially from explicitly comparative perspectives. Submissions that focus wholly or partly on the environmental laws of developing or transitional countries are especially welcome. Every manuscript submitted must include a meaningful discussion of how its contents are relevant to achieving sustainable development, constructing an ecological civilization, building sustainable societies, or related goals.  

Keywords:

  • Environmental Law
  • Institutions
  • Culture
  • Sustainable Development
  • Ecological Civilization
  • Sustainable Societies

 

Published Papers (5 papers)

Article

18 February 2024

The Sustainable Development Concept in the Polish Legal Space from a Legal-Dogmatic Perspective

The sustainable development concept is of crucial importance for the socioeconomic development processes, not only at the international community level, but also—or, perhaps, particularly—at the national or even local levels. The aim of the article is to demonstrate, from a legal-dogmatic perspective, the place, role and significance of the sustainable development concept in the Polish legal space. This perspective applies to both the state policy intended to formulate a strategy which provides a basis for law-making processes and to find normative solutions making it possible to reconcile legally protected values which sometimes compete with one another, with account taken of the needs of future generations. The sustainable development concept has been very broadly followed in Poland not only in the legal doctrine, but also in the doctrine of economic and social sciences. This term has turned out to be such an effective political catchword that it has been commonly abused and, therefore, it has lost a good deal of its social importance; this makes it substantially more difficult to apply a normative approach to the issues related to the implementation of the concept in legislative practice. In the Polish legal space, the sustainable development concept has become the leading theme of many documents and legal acts, particularly those concerned with environmental protection, but also, although to a much more modest extent, those addressing the issues of socioeconomic development.

Maria Magdalena  Kenig-Witkowska*

Review

02 April 2024

Mapping the (in)Effective Enforcement of EU Environmental Law in Greece: Lessons from the EU and Domestic Courts

The effective implementation and enforcement of EU environmental law at national level constitutes a thorny issue with both legal and practical aspects. Greece is among the EU Member States which has historically faced difficulties in complying with the EU environmental acquis due to the poor functioning of the Greek administration, the limited manpower, expertise and resources (especially during the recent period of the economic crisis) for the competent authorities, the lack of political will, the low awareness of environmental problems. In this context, this paper aspires to unpack these enforcement challenges at the national level based on the case law of both the Greek Council of State and the Court of Justice of the European Union. Considering that waste management, nature protection, and water and air quality sectors are recognized as areas with the most significant deficiencies in implementation at the domestic level, the analysis will focus on these four key sectors.  To this end, by reviewing the relevant EU and Greek jurisprudence, this paper aspires to identify the disparities between the formal requirements and the practical application of EU environmental regulations in Greece in light of the national political, economic, social, and cultural dynamics. 

Kleoniki Pouikli*
Ariti  Tsoukala
Ifigeneia Tsakalogianni

Article

15 April 2024

Impacts on the Legal Framework for Protecting Environmental and Human Rights in Brazil due to Ideological Antagonism: The Interrelated Cases of the Yanomami and the Amazon Fund

The occupation of the Amazon is driven by capitalist production, impacting climate change discussions. Despite constitutional protections since 1934, the influx of non-Indigenous settlers, particularly miners, led to significant conflicts. The Yanomami sought international recourse through the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR). In the context of redemocratization, the 1988 Constitution marked a shift, reinforcing Indigenous rights and environmental protection. Brazil’s role in protecting the rainforest intersects with global climate efforts, including the REDD+ mechanism. The creation of the Amazon Fund in 2008, aligned with REDD+ initiatives, involved international cooperation and local governance, leading to a substantial decline in Amazon deforestation between 2004 and 2012. However, exploitative practices endorsed by the State pose threats to environmental and human rights, notably affecting indigenous communities. Amid Brazil’s democracy crisis, deforestation surged in the Amazon from 2013–2022 and the Yanomami face conflicts fueled by State support for non-Indigenous groups. The Yanomami sought international recourse through the IACHR and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. These issues are intensified by an ideological bias, linked to authoritarian populism rooted in the legacy of the Dictatorship. Recent initiatives aim to enhance environmental and human rights protection. However, political instability poses challenges for the future.

André de PaivaToledo*

Article

22 April 2024

Construction of a Comprehensive International Legal Protection Mechanism for Climate Refugees

Climate refugee has become an unavoidable major right crisis challenge for the international community. However, the corresponding development of positive international law is obviously imperfect. The basic rights of climate refugees cannot be fully guaranteed by international law. They are always facing problems such as unclear legal status lack of protection of basic rights, and imperfect relief mechanism. Those vulnerable groups who lack resources and migration abilities suffer more serious rights violations because they are forced to stay in place. Compared with the risk-management framework and right-protection framework, the comprehensive international legal protection mechanism is the inevitable choice for climate refugees’ rights relief in the post-2012 period. The rights of climate refugees set out in the preamble of the Paris Agreement in 2015, the New York Declaration on Refugees and Migrants in 2016, the Global Refugee Compact in 2018, and the Global Compact for Security, Order and Regular Migration formally incorporated the issues of refugees and migrants caused by climate change, laying the foundation for this choice. However, it is a long and difficult way to build a perfect comprehensive international response to climate change. It is not only necessary to realize the integration of human rights law and climate law at the conceptual level, but also to integrate the different perspectives of the two laws and build a set of scientific and reasonable cooperation mechanism.

Yu Cheng
Shuxuan Wang
Yu Liu*

Article

18 November 2024

Developing a Climate Litigation Framework: China’s Contribution to International Environmental Law

Although “climate litigation” is not an indigenous term in China, localizing it is essential to support the development of an independent environmental legal knowledge system in China. Rooted in China’s judicial tradition, which emphasizes substantive rationality, traditional legal theories have primarily focused on environmental law. However, the contemporary practices in the rule of law have created an unclear trajectory for climate litigation. Research in this area has long been trapped in a paradigm that relies on lawsuits for ecological environmental damage compensation and environmental public interest litigation, leading to a significant disconnect between theoretical framworks and practical application. With the advancement of the "dual carbon" strategic goals—carbon peaking and carbon neutrality—it has become imperative to redefine the concept of climate litigation within the Chinese context. We need to establish a theoretical framework that aligns with the “dual carbon” objectives while providing theoretical and institutional support for climate litigation, ultimately contributing to the international discourse on climate justice. Additionally, Hong Kong’s proactive climate governance and robust ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) practices provide valuable insights for developing comprehensive climate litigation mechanisms. Based on this analysis, we propose concrete plans for building a climate litigation system in China, establishing a preventive relief system and a multi-source legal framework at the substantive level and developing climate judicial mechanisms for mitigation and adaptation at the procedural level.

Yedong Zhang*
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