In Search of Sustainable Legitimacy: Environmental Law and Bureaucracy

Lecture | February 8 | 4 p.m. | Institute of East Asian Studies (2223 Fulton, 6th Floor), Conference Room

Moderator: Thomas B. Gold, Sociology, and Director, IUP Program, UC Berkeley

Speaker/Performer: Alex Wang, Visiting Assistant Professor, Law, UC Berkeley

Sponsor: Institute of East Asian Studies (IEAS)

This talk will examine why and how China mobilized the bureaucracy to prioritize and meet a range of pollution targets during the 11th FYP (2006-2010). This study draws on research into environmental regulation, law, governance, and China's broader political context.

Alex L. Wang Bio

Alex Wang’s primary research and teaching interests are environmental law, China law, and comparative law.

Prior to coming to Berkeley Law in 2011, Mr. Wang was a senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) based in Beijing and the director of NRDC’s China Environmental Law & Governance Project for nearly six years. In this capacity, he worked with China’s government agencies, legal community, and environmental groups to improve environmental rule of law and strengthen the role of the public in environmental protection. He helped to establish NRDC’s Beijing office in 2006. He was a Fulbright Fellow to China from 2004-05. Prior to that, Mr. Wang was an attorney at the law firm of Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP in New York City, where he worked on mergers & acquisitions, securities matters, and pro bono Endangered Species Act litigation. He was selected as a fellow to the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations (2008-10), and is a member of the Advisory Board to the Asia Society’s Center on U.S.-China Relations.

Mr. Wang is a regular speaker on issues related to China and environmental protection, and has been an invited speaker at various institutions, such as the Council on Foreign Relations and the Asia Society. His commentary has appeared in such places as the New York Times, Huffington Post, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Bloomberg News, China Daily, Global Times, Time Magazine, National Public Radio, Marketplace, and CCTV.

Mr. Wang’s recent publications include “China’s Environmental Tipping Point” in China In and Beyond the Headlines (2011, forthcoming), a guest edited volume of Chinese Law and Government entitled “Environmental Courts and Public Interest Litigation in China” (with J. Gao) (2010), “Environmental Courts and the Development of Public Interest Litigation in China” in the Journal of Court Innovation (with J. Gao) (2010), and “The Role of Law in Environmental Protection in China” in the Vermont Journal of Environmental Law (2007). His latest article "In Search of Sustainable Legitimacy: Environmental Law and Bureaucracy in China" is forthcoming in the Harvard Environmental Law Review (summer 2013).

This talk is part of a series of presentations by IEAS Residential Research Fellows.

Event Contact: ieas@berkeley.edu, 510-642-2809