From the 2009 News Archive

Prof. Percival Lectures on Environment in China

Professor Robert Percival, the Robert F. Stanton Professor of Law and the Director of the School of Law's Environmental Law Program, recently traveled to six cities in China to participate in a series of 15 talks and discussions on topics including the globalization of environmental law and the emissions of greenhouses gases. During the trip, sponsored by the U.S. Department of State Undersecretary of Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, Percival met with hundreds of students, scientists, and thought-leaders in every consular district of the China.

"This trip gave me a rare opportunity to interact with faculty, students, environmental professionals and government officials from all over China," said Percival in his weekly blog. "In my lectures I highlighted the argument that China should not have to control emissions caused by the production of goods for export (also addressed in blog posts dated March 22, 2009 and June 15, 2008) and why it falls apart on several levels and serves as an invitation to tariffs on Chinese goods."

According to Percival's blog, he visited Beijing, Chongqing, Shanghai, Suzhou, Guangzhou, and Dalian, where he met with the Ministry of Environmental Protection of the People's Republic of China, the Guangzhou Lawyers' Association, the Suzhou Association for Science and Technology, the Sun Yat-Sen University School of Law, Tsinghua University's Center for U.S.-China Relations, three Shanghai Universities, and others.

He was also asked to participate in a 90-minute interview with journalist Luo Jinyu of Citizen Magazine, a highly regarded publication in China.

"The questions were fascinating - lessons China can learn from the history of U.S. environmental law, trends in environmental law around the world, what role developing countries should agree to play in controlling GHG emissions, how to reconcile economic development with environmental protection," wrote Percival. Percival, who served as a J. William Fulbright Distinguished Lecturer at the China University of Political Science and Law in Beijing in 2008, noted that "this was the most intense two weeks I have spent in China during my many trips here."

Percival, internationally recognized as a leading scholar in environmental law, has lectured and presented environmental law workshops on six continents in countries including Australia, Chile, India, Iran, Japan, Mongolia, Uganda, Ukraine, and the former Soviet Union. He is principal author of the country's most widely used casebook in environmental law, Environmental Regulation: Law, Science & Policy, now in its sixth edition. He has served on the Board of Directors of the Environmental Law Institute and as co-chair of the steering committee of the D.C. Bar's Section on Environmental, Energy and Natural Resources Law. Percival has also served as the contributing editor for Environment and Natural Resources for the Federal Circuit Bar Journal, as a special master for the U.S. District Court of Maryland.

Read more about week one and week two of the lecture tour in China.

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