Human Rights in China: A Social Practice in the Shadows of Authoritarianism

Abstract

III.The right to a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment11 Regarding environmental rights, the reviewed book adopts the same approach as the section on the right to education above, by referring to the case of 'cancer villages'.12 The book argues that the environmental rights of many Chinese farmers are compromised by industrial pollution and that these citizens are not fully protected from pollution by the Party-State.13 The Party-State is open about the fact that China is confronted with the same pollution problems in the country's process of industrialization as western nations experienced a century ago.14 To help fulfill its responsibility to protect environmental rights, the Party-State assigned RMB 17.2 billion to cope with heavy metal pollution from 2010 to 2015.15 Moreover, in 2015, the State Council issued the 'Prevention of Water Pollution Action Plan' and 'Prevention of Atmosphere Pollution Action Plan' that specify a series of stringent measures aimed at addressing China's pollution problem.16 Moreover, the aforementioned National Human Rights Action Plan (2016-2020) also stresses the environmental rights of Chinese citizens.17 On a legal dimension, in recent years, the Environmental Protection Law, Water Pollution Prevention Law and Atmosphere Pollution Prevention Law18 have all been amended by the Chinese legislature to reinforce their efficacy.19 In addition, the draft of the Soil Pollution Prevention Law is also under deliberation of the Chinese legislature.20 In regard to regulatory actions, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment (MEE) has been continuously active since the year 2000. Admittedly, in some relocation projects before 2011, a few local governments disregarded the requests of such dissenters and forced them to relocate by using violence.25 These 'forced relocation' cases have already been widely reported by China's mainstream media and some of them have been quoted by the reviewed book.26 Echoing the aforementioned 'forced relocation' cases, the General Office of the State Council issued an urgent notice on 15 May 2010 in which it strictly prohibited local governments from abusing their power in the process of relocating farmers.27 The notice made it very clear that government officials who decided or participated in forced relocation would be stringently punished by law, or by internal Party disciplinary proceedings.28 Eight months later, on 21 January 2011, the State Council enacted an administrative regulation entitled 'Regulation on the Expropriation of Buildings on Stateowned Lands and Compensations'.29 This regulation clarifies the negotiation and complaint procedures, compensation criteria and governmental officials' legal liability in the process of relocating residents on state-owned lands.30 Even though its title only refers to state-owned lands, the regulation also applies to relocation on collectively-owned land in the countryside.31 Article 31 of the regulation provides that: If their acts constitute the violation of the public security administration, administrative punishment shall be imposed thereon according to law.32 On 24 March 2011, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and the Ministry of Supervision jointly issued a notice requiring that their local branches must take immediate action to inspect and evaluate the enforcement of relevant laws and regulations concerning urban and rural relocation.33 On the part of the judiciary, on 26 March 2012, the Supreme People's Court of China promulgated a judicial interpretation regarding judicially-forced relocation on stateowned lands.34 According to the judicial interpretation, the Supreme People's Court requires local courts to adopt an extremely cautious attitude towards approving forced relocation.35 Within Article 6 of the judicial interpretation, seven enumerated circumstances may override an application by local governments for judicially-forced relocation.36 Furthermore, the Supreme People's Court issued a notice on 5 April 2012 emphasizing that local courts must strictly and accurately implement the judicial interpretation, so as to safeguard the right to housing of Chinese citizens.37 Based on the above analysis, it is clear that the Party-State places great emphasis on the housing rights of citizens and actively cracks down on any abuses of power by local governments in the process of relocation. Lin Zhang Adjunct Professor, School of Law, Fujian Normal University Professor, School of Law, Korea University © 2019 Lin Zhang https://doi.org/10.1080/10192557.2019.1569363 1 Eva Pils, Human Rights in China: A Social Practice in the Shadows of Authoritarianism (Polity Press, 2018) 145. Besides Pils, a number of western scholars have recently authored prominent books that examine human rights in China.