Environmental degradation is one of the most serious problems facing industrialized societies. Remedies or prevention of harms caused by environmental pollution require collective activities of many people. Sociolegal research has for many years focused on the connections of law to disputing, dispute transformation, and social change. This project will draw on theories and research from this literature to examine the expansion or contraction of rights and the handling of conflicts about the environment. Using a new class-action lawsuit in Kobe, Japan as a case study, this project will trace the formation of a social movement and the transformation of its conflict with industry and government over the issue of air pollution. Through interviews with participants involved in the filing of 500 lawsuits by Japanese citizens in an industrial pollution case, the investigators will trace how the grievances of individual citizens produced a victims' organization, government legislation, subsequent government retreat from aid to victims, and involvement in litigation. Thus, the in-depth study permits detailing the different social forces which have affected the development of both political and legal action as well as the relationship between the two. This research will illustrate the complex legal, cultural, and political processes involved in policy formation and the relevance of theory in this area to the explanation of responses to environmental change. It promises to extend our understanding of the connection between legal institutions, policy change, and the actions of everyday citizens as well as provide important new insights into patterns of conflict management in Japan and elsewhere. How rights are articulated and how law becomes mobilized on issues relating to the environment have immensely important theoretical and policy implications for understanding global environmental change, the development of rights movements, and the process of legal mobilization.
