Co-PI: Rachel Stern Proposal Number: 0617017
Will environmental litigation led by Chinese "cause lawyers" spark an American-style rights revolution? Will it improve environmental quality? How did cause lawyers come to exist in an authoritarian state and how do they operate?
This dissertation research project looks at the creation and impact of Chinese environmental cause lawyers, i.e., activist lawyers motivated by a cause rather than cash (Scheingold 2001). Consciously or not, Western foundations and other non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have begun exporting a mode of legal action which relies on environmental litigation-spearheaded by cause lawyers and legal aid centers-to improve policy compliance, raise environmental consciousness and redress egregious violations of the law. Through interviews in the United States and China, this project will trace the development of this form of legal action from its origins in the 1960s American legal history to its implementation in contemporary China.
In a place where rights are tentative aspirations, organizations like the Ford Foundation and the American Bar Association (ABA) may be bankrolling legal defense programs in the hopes that cause lawyers will spark a Chinese rights revolution. Preliminary research on environmental litigation in China suggests that at least some international actors have taken Epp's charge seriously that "proponents of expanded judicial protection for rights should...provide support to rights-advocacy lawyers and organizations" (Epp 1998: 6). The dissertation research will investigate civil environmental lawsuits with and without cause lawyers, with the ultimate goal being to understand how legal expertise and transnational ties affect 1) the resolution of lawsuits and 2) operating procedures for local government and business. In other words, can this kind of litigation stop immediate pollution and change long-term practices?
Certainly, the Chinese government is betting that lawsuits will stem environmental degradation. Environmental lawsuits enjoy special tolerance because of the sheer severity of China's environmental problems. By reining in local evasion of central directives, the hope is that lawsuits will stop pollution and provide a peaceful ways for citizens to vent frustration against local abuses (Gallagher 2005b; O'Brien and Li 2005). Yet it is not clear that rule of law can be harnessed to meet the needs of a one party state. As Martha Minow reminds us, "legal language, like a song, can be hummed by someone who did not write it and changed by those for whom it was not intended" (Minow 1990 quoted in McCann 1993: 733).
Broader Impacts: While scholars have looked at the globalization of activism (Keck and Sikkink 1998, Tarrow 2005), policy (Dolowitz and Marsh 2000) and culture (Appadurai 1996), globalization of the law remains understudied (Halliday and Osinsky 2006). Looking at legal links between international organizations and grassroots litigants can give us a new perspective on how legal practices move across borders, generating new resources for complaint. The study is one of very small numbers of studies to examine cause lawyers in an authoritarian regime. Therefore, the project will extend our knowledge about what activist lawyers can accomplish under severe political constraints.
