China's Environmental Governance of Plastic Pollution: Mission (Im)possible?

Description

Plastic pollution poses a multitude of challenges to China’s goal of establishing a modernenvironmental governance system and achieving ‘ecological civilization’. As China consumesmore than 90 million tonnes of plastics per year and is reported to be the largest generator ofplastic waste, its regulatory responses will have a significant impact on and role to play intackling the environmental crisis. While China’s efforts to mitigate plastic pollution have beenprogressively ramped up in recent years, problems such as the absence of a comprehensive law,weak implementation of rules and regulations, limited role of non-state actors, and potentialuse of World Trade Organization (WTO)-inconsistent measures persist. Thus, despite renewedefforts, plastic pollution remains a growing problem and a potential cause of environmentalcrisis for the country. This project will contribute to the scholarly debate on China’s environmental governance byusing plastic pollution as a case study to test the impact and efficacy of China’s legal andregulatory framework for environmental protection. In doing so, the project becomes one ofthe first systematic and comprehensive efforts to thoroughly investigate China’s governance ofplastic pollution across various administrative levels and its interface with the multilateraltrading system. Specifically, the project will use a multifaceted research methodology in orderto understand and inform China’s legal and regulatory regime for tackling plastic pollution andimprove its implementation and enforcement. The project will also pay particular attention toensuring that China’s plastic governance measures comply with its WTO obligations. The emergence and development of the ‘Entire Chain Governance’ (‘Quan Lian Tiao Zhi Li’),covering plastic production, distribution, consumption, recycling and end-of-life treatmentstages as supported by an expanding body of regulations and policies provide rich avenues forlegal analysis. Moreover, the project will explore the interface between trade-related measuresintervening at different stages of the plastic value chain and the WTO law, shedding light onhow consistency with international trade rules can be ensured. With a multifaceted researchmethodology encompassing doctrinal and empirical analysis, including text analysis of laws,regulations, and policies enacted at the central and local levels, and semi-structured interviewswith important stakeholders, such as government officials, environmental non-governmentalorganizations (NGOs), and industry experts, this project will make timely recommendationsfor developing environmental rules and regulations in China to effectively tackle plasticpollution. In this regard, the research aims to bring together insights from multiple stakeholdersto improve China’s environmental governance capacity.