RIEL, China’s Premier Environmental Law Institute, Celebrates 40th Anniversary

As a new sub-discipline in the field of law, China’s environmental law has a short history, of some forty years. The Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment (1972) and the Stockholm Declaration on the Human Environment proved to be milestones in China’s environmental protection and relevant legislation as they encouraged China to incorporate itself into the worldwide prevailing trend of safeguarding the environment by beginning to address the pollution and ecological degradation caused by industrialization. The Environmental Protection Law of the People’s Republic of China (for Trial Implementation) in 1979 was an indication of the national scheme to coordinate economic and social development with environmental improvement. With this as a turning point, China devised its own environmental legal system encompassing contemporary theory, new institutions, laws and regulations and more modern modes of management. In this scenario, when China’s legal infrastructure and research were pressing for a fresh start, its environmental laws remained relatively obscure. However, some pioneering scholars, led in particular by Professor HAN Depei of Wuhan University, were acutely aware that adequate environmental protection and legislation at the national level was of urgent priority, and that high-level research on environmental law was necessary. With remarkable foresight, strategic vision and courage, Professor HAN worked very hard to