Saturday, October 18, 2014

The 2014 Revisions to China' Environmental Protection Law

Here's a link to a short essay I did on the 2014 Revisions to China's Environmental Protection Law for the "Risk Dialogue Magazine," a publication of the Swiss Re Center for Global Dialogue.

The Revisions were adopted last spring, and they introduce some important changes to China's environmental law governance system.  But there are also likely to be limits, especially due to capacity limitations and governance system weaknesses, to how quickly change will result.  Nevertheless, the legislative reform measure is a positive sign both for China's environmentalist civil society as well as the progressive green elements in the government.

[There is also erratum to the piece - in section III on Public Interest Litigation, the piece should have indicated that "social organisations that are registered at the municipal government level" or at a higher governmental level have standing to bring cases under Article 58. -- update - Swiss Re has been able to fixed this, and the current version is now correct.]

The piece is also available on the main Center website at

http://cgd.swissre.com/global_dialogue/topics/Environmental_liability/




Friday, October 17, 2014

Very funny law school parody ("Law School") of Maroon 5 song "I am at a Payphone"

This was forwarded to me, and it was too funny (and well-done) not to share.  I am not sure which law school these students are at, but kudos to them.  See the youtube video link below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mTbofSUBso

Thursday, October 16, 2014

Clean Energy for Rural Pakistan

I was forwarded this news story about Shazia Khan, a former Vermont Law School student of mine, who is working to bring clean energy to rural Pakistan.  Her non-profit, Eco Energy Finance, provides "electricity to remote areas of Pakistan for people whose lives are restricted when the sun goes down. Her idea is to harness solar power and turn it into electricity for villagers."  Great example of a social entrepreneur.  Full story is here:

http://www.timesunion.com/local/article/Lighting-up-villagers-lives-5825741.php