The Sino-German Legal Cooperation Programme at GIZ and the Institute of Environmental Law at the Northwest University of Politics and Law announced to begin a training project for judges in China in environmental law Thursday in Beijing.

The project seeks to enhance judges' capacities in handling environmental cases as part of its broader goal to promote environmental justice in China through leveraging European best practices. The project adopts a "Train the Trainers" approach, developing curricula targeting trainers in Shaanxi, Guangxi and Gansu who in turn train judges in environmental law and justice. Over 120 judges from the three provinces are expected to attend training sessions in the summer months. The trainings will focus on practical, methodological approaches to hearing and processing environmental cases, drawing from European experiences.

The training project will initially cover 240 judges over two years; new training curricula will be developed for other groups such as public prosecutors, lawyers and adminstrative authorities.

In addition, the project also aims to increase public awareness of access to environmental justice among various stakeholders, including the general public, in the three provinces and across the country. It also seeks to work closely with government institutions, universities and NGOs working on environmental issues to provide further support to judges. Upon completion, the project will look to expand the successful training models to other provinces in China.

The project entitled "Development of Training Curricula and Organisation of Training Courses for Judges in Environmental Law in Shaanxi, Gansu and Gansu" is a partnership project of the EU-China Environmental Governance Programme, funded by the European Commission and implemented in cooperation with China's Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP), under the third core theme, "access to justice." The project has also received the support of China's Supreme People's Court, China's National Judges College and the High Courts of Shaanxi, Guangxi and Gansu.

The challenges ahead

China faces a wide range of environmental challenges. Air pollution is a major environmental and public health concern in many areas of the country, particularly in the North; water pollution and conservation poses a significant challenge to a number of regions within the country, and, as a recent government study shows, with about 20% of the country's arable land contaminated by heavy metals, China faces a difficult task in addressing the problem of soil pollution. Moreover, recent incidents, such as strong public opposition in multiple cities to the construction of paraxylene (PX) plants or city-wide incidents of water contamination (most recently in Lanzhou) underscore the pressing need to find effective means of managing these problems.

In response, China has made serious efforts at multiple levels to address these problems and balance its economic growth with environmental sustainability. Robust enforcement of China's environmental laws, particularly through the judiciary, is indispensible to such efforts. China has a relatively thorough system of environment-related laws, including the Environmental Protection Law presently under revision. It has also established over one hundred environmental courts located throughout the country.

However, as environmental justice develops in China, it faces major obstacles. Judges throughout China are confronted with a heavy workload and may not be suitably trained to handle technically challenging environmental cases. Moreover, the low number of cases is illustrative of a still relatively low level of awareness among the public of access to environmental justice.