The Chinese Legal Tradition as a Cultural Constraint on the Westernization of Chinese Environmental Law and Policy: Toward a Chinese Environmental Law and Policy Regime with More Chinese Characteristics

This Article argues that the Chinese legal tradition is essentially a Confucian legal tradition, and that its Confucian attributes significantly constrain the effectiveness of the Western-style environmental laws enacted by the PRC in recent decades. Part I explores the emergence of a Confucian legal tradition in China and its impact on Chinese legal culture before the founding of the PRC. Part II highlights some of the impacts of this tradition on the Chinese legal system during the same period. Part III makes a case for the endurance of the Confucian essence of this legal tradition in the PRC itself, and highlights its implications for the effectiveness of the PRC’s Western-style environmental laws. This Article concludes with a few preliminary strategic suggestions for making the PRC’s environmental law and policy regime more effective by aligning it more closely with the Confucian essence of the Chinese legal tradition