Until recently, the idea of environmental advocacy was largely unheard of in China. But that's changing... At a Beijing-based, legal aid center [called the Centre for Legal Assistance to Pollution Victims, founder and deputy director] Xu Kezhu and her colleagues are helping pollution victims stand up for their rights... Inside the cramped suite, shelves buckle under the weight of binders stuffed with thousands of hand-written accounts of polluted rivers and contaminated fields across China... 'China has many good environmental laws,' she told me. 'The problem is enforcement'... In recent years, even as the central government has become more concerned about controlling pollution, China's environmental woes have intensified... In the U.S... two key mechanisms absent in China help enforce federal laws. First, the EPA has direct oversight over local environmental bureaus and can intervene when regional officials ignore rulings. In China, the opposite is true: Local environmental officials report to the provincial governments, who have an economic interest in shielding local industry. Also in the U.S., independent environmental lawyers can sue the executive branch when laws... aren't upheld. [But] in China, there is no long-standing tradition of taking the government to court... Today, however, Xu Kezhu is one of a growing number of legal mavericks working to change the system. Xu told me that her goals are... to 'promote enforcement of environmental law,' and to 'tell the public how to respond when your rights are violated.' The notion of rights is itself new in China -- in the realm of environmental protection, or otherwise."
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