 Environmental Constitutionalism in China: A Constitution without Constitutionalism?Evelyn Li Wang Journal of Environmental Law, 2024, vol. 36, issue 2, 187-202 Abstract: There is a long tradition of constitutionalising environmental protection in the People's Republic of China ('China'). This is illustrated, for example, by the constitutionalisation of the need to construct ‘ecological civilisation’ – a set of values and development concepts included in 2018 as part of constitutional amendments. Yet, the Constitution of China is often described as a constitution without constitutionalism. This article examines the constitutional environmental provisions in China, as well as the underpinning constitutional theories, to demonstrate how China enjoys environmental constitutionalism. This version of constitutionalism, however, is absent of rights and overwhelmingly enforced through state-based approaches, which means that it is distinct from the rights-based and courts-centred versions of liberal constitutionalism. This study thus exemplifies how constitutional practices may adopt different formulations and environmental constitutionalism exists without being committed to liberal principles. Keywords: environmental constitutionalism; liberal constitutionalism; Constitution of China; ecological civilisation (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:envlaw:v:36:y:2024:i:2:p:187-202. Access Statistics for this article Journal of Environmental Law is currently edited by Sanja Bogojević More articles in Journal of Environmental Law from Oxford University Press |
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