Li Huibin: Ecological Rights and Ecological Justice: The Structure of Organization and Governance
1. Eco-Rights and Eco-Justice
Citizen individuals or organizations have rights for protecting and improving their living environments frequently. It is what we call the ecological rights. Ecological rights of human beings come or derive from their survival rights, in the sense of Social Ecology. Not only have citizens the rights to existence, but also the rights for existing in a protected and optimized their living environments. The survival rights would become nonsense if people's living environments couldn't be protected. That is to say, survival rights inherently imply the ecological rights.
In a certain sense, ecological justice is just to deals legally and equitably the protection and transaction of ecological rights. In other word, ecological justice is just the realization of ecological rights. Not only on production should our studies in the utility and rareness of natural resources are focusing, but also, more significant, on consumption and human's survival, I think. Then we will reduce environmental damages, protect people's ecological rights, and defend ecological justice of human society maximally. For these purposes, we need the inviolable ecological rights which are entailed and regulated by laws and protect our ecological requirements in the dimensions of individual, family, community, enterprise, region and country, etc.
Chinese governments, both central and local, make great efforts on the governance of environments with enthusiasm in recent years, and put forward a new idea, in particularly, constructing ecological civilization. They come to emphasize the ecological factor strictly not only in the projects of development and investment, but also in the examination and promotion of officials. It becomes a continuous upsurge throughout the country to build the Model Cities of Environmental Protection. Based on the framework of the Kyoto Protocol, Chinese Environmental Protection Departments have advocated a series of concepts for green economic policies, such as Green Taxation, Environmental Charge, Green Capital Market, Ecological Compensation, Trade of Pollution Rights, Ecological Insurance, etc. Local governments and their environmental branches have brought out and set up various indexes or rules for the environmental protection. More and more persons are conscious of the unjustness of excessive pollution emission, which makes them agree to a principle, that is, those who bring pollution should pay for it.
2. Institution of Eco-compensation
In 2005, State Council made a requirement in The Decision of Implementing the Scientific Outlook on Development and Reinforcing the Environmental Protection that Chinese government "should perfect the policies of eco-compensation and try to set up the institutions of eco-compensation as soon as possible. Eco-compensation should be taken as one of contents in the transfer payment of central and local governments, and the relevant experiments should be permitted." Two years later, "expediting the establishment of the institutions of eco-compensation" was listed in the important tasks of energy-saving and emission-reducing in the document named as Main Tasks of the State Council in 2007. And another file, The Comprehensive Working Outlines of Energy-saving and Emission-reducing, also required definitely that institutions of eco-compensation in the exploitation of natural recourses should be improved and perfected, meanwhile trying some experiments in the cross-valley eco-compensation. On August 24th, 2007, General Bureau of Environmental Protection promulgated The Guidelines for Experiments of Eco-compensation, in which the basic principles of eco-compensation are "Those who exploit the environment should protect it; Those who deconstruct the environment should repair it; Those who benefit from the environment should compensate for it; Those who pollute the environment should pay for it.
3．Transaction of carbon
Governments enact measures of punishment, establish strict requirements for reducing pollution and control the quantity of the emitted pollution, which enlarge the market of transaction of emission rights. The appearance of such a market in which the main aspect is the transaction of carbon emission rights means that the issues of ecological rights and ecological justice have been paid attention to by governments and enterprises. 1
Jiangsu Province of China established "The Provisional Measures on Administration for Trade of Sulfur Dioxide Pollution Rights in Jiangsu" in April, 2007 and brought forward a new approach for environmental protection, which is to distribute the ecological resources in market and reduce the pollution emission by means of price adjustment. Jiangxu speeds up to establish the provincial price system of environments, distribute the initial emission rights, set up the auction market for sulfur dioxide emission in order to ensure the ecological rights of citizens.
4．Institution of Compensation as Individual Ecological Rights
What the trade of emission rights among enterprises resolves only involve the public parts of the ecological rights of citizens, while the private parts have been awaiting to be compensated by those that emit pollutants. Some district courts have set about inquiring the related cases in order to help the victims in pollution compensated appropriately.
5. Problems and limits
The agents of ecological rights include local governments, enterprises and individuals. Now, the ecological governance in China are still on the first stage. Mature rules and laws need establishing; awareness and actions in EP of local officials and citizens still need promoting; tasks of rural EP are not accomplished yet; and the study on ecological justice need going forward and further.