China is today strengthening enforcement of its environmental laws with the largest ever training of environmental judges in Beijing.

The week-long set of seminars for over 300 judges was organised by the Supreme People’s Court and international law organisation ClientEarth. Senior judges and environmental experts from across the world will share environmental cases from their jurisdictions.

Speakers include Erik Solheim, the Executive Director of UN Environment; Laurent Fabius, former Prime Minister of France and chair of the Paris Agreement on climate change; and James Thornton, CEO of ClientEarth.

Environmental disputes

In recent years, China has established over 600 environmental courts at all levels of the judiciary.

These courts handle all kinds of environmental disputes, including criminal cases such as wildlife poaching or illegal logging, civil cases such as personal or environmental damages from pollution, and administrative cases where government is James Thornton causing damage to the environment.

ClientEarth has an office in Beijing to work with the Chinese government.

James Thornton, chief executive of ClientEarth, said: “The importance of training Chinese environmental judges cannot be overestimated.

Legal experts

“It is the decisions of these judges which must protect the environment in the world’s largest developing country. The effectiveness of China’s emerging system of environmental laws ultimately depends on them.”

Dimitri de Boer, head of ClientEarth’s China office said: “China wants to increasingly use law-based approaches to deal with its environmental challenges.

“We are seeing a number of reforms in this direction. For example, NGOs and state prosecutors are now able to bring cases on behalf of the public interest.”

Just last week, China’s Supreme People’s Court announced that it will establish two international courts to settle disputes in the Belt and Road Initiative. It will invite authoritative legal experts from outside China to participate.

This Author

Brendan Montague is editor of The Ecologist. This article is based on a press release from ClientEarth.