A Study On The Reform Of China’s Environmental Administration System

China’s environmental administration (EA) system has gone through various stages, including start-up, formation, fluctuation and development, since 1970s. The two-tier EA system has been progressively introduced till now. It has played a strong role in the acceleration of industrialization and modernization of China over past three decades. However, with the rapid economic growth and social development, China is also faced some issues in a wide range of fields. So far the government’s EA has been deviating from the original intention of lawmaking, and the existing EA system could not meet the needs of current development of environmental protection (EP). EP in China has already entered a turning point in history, the EP under new situation requires optimizing economic development and the reform of the incommensurate EA system is of great urgency.Reform is a grand mission that requires both theoretic and practical explorations. This Dissertation, with a focus on the questions of "what, why and how to reform", provides a justification and analysis of the necessity, inevitability and feasibility of reforming China’s EA system by means of historical analysis, comparative study and jurisprudential, and puts forward some conceptions, proposals and legislative suggestions regarding the EA system reform.First, the Dissertation states that it is necessary to reform China’s EA system. After defining the basic concept of EA system and analyzing the connotations of the reform thereof, the Dissertation clearly points out that the "EA system" mentioned herein is narrow-sensed and only refers to EA by government and the reform thereof means to transform government functions, restructure EA authorities, adjust the power distribution, and improve the mechanisms for the operation and supervision of EA. The Dissertation depicts what China’s EA system was like in the history, describes the evolution and contributing factors thereof, and then outlines the status quo and features of the current system. It points out the fundamental deficiencies of the current system, including:involvement of multiple administrative authorities with overlapping functions, lack of coordination mechanism, absence of EP duties from government’s roles, EP authority under dual leaderships which lacks commitment to and particularly oversight mechanism for EP. All of which are due to the misunderstanding of the hypothesis of rational man and the loss of institutional design. The source of the system shows that the system of the rational distribution of administrative authorities is confusing, the deficiencies of the only checking on officers’ achievements about GDP and the design of the environmental legal system.The dissertation further points out that the reform of China’s EA system is inevitable. EP in China has now stepped into a stage of historical transformation. The CPC Central Committee and the State Council have made the strategic decision of "three transformations", marking a new milestone in the EP history of China. The development of EP in China should optimize the EP-oriented economic growth and implement the scientific outlook on development and build resource-saving and environment-friendly society to realize the harmony between man and nature. Against such big background, to reform the current EA system has become a natural choice of history. Good governance and the rule of law are both "boosters" driving the EA system reform. In fact, good governance is a kind of return which brings the state power back to the community and civil society is the real foundation of good governance. Therefore, to strengthen the mechanism of public participation and improve the supervision of EA is the inexorable choice to cover the gap in government’s EA functions. In the context of ruling and administrating the country by law, the current administrative system reform is following the value of the rule of law, and the EA system as one of the administrative systems has to comply with it. The procedure of the reform will choose the rules of law as its value orientation, so as protect the justice of reform procedure and to achieve the substantive justice of reform results.Building on the analysis of the reform necessity and following a comparative analysis of the EA systems of the US, Japan, France, Germany, Russia, Canada, India, South Korea, and Singapore, the Dissertation concludes a general tendency of reform in these countries, which is to improve the status of EP authorities, centralize the EP functions, optimize the division of powers between the Central and local governments, strengthen the coordination mechanism, establish environmental consulting organizations, encourage public participation and public supervision, promote the integration of environment and development decision-making, and implement the practice of legislation before reform. It also points out that no country follows the same EA system and therefore China must choose those paths and models in commensurate with its own national conditions when learning the experience of other countries in reforming their EA systems.The last two chapters demonstrate the feasibility of EA system reform in China, which covers the basic strategy and conception of the reform, the specific proposals and legislative suggestions. The reform of EA system is a long-term task which should accommodate itself to the requirement and processes of the state administrative system, and it must be adapted to the development and processes of socialist market economy with Chinese characteristics. It should be pressed ahead in a stable manner under the principle of "overall planning and step-by-step implantation". The overall goal of the reform is to build a unified, authoritative, and efficient EA system under the direction of scientific outlook on development. And the guidelines should be to respect the administrative and ecological rules, to restructure EM system reform and reshape the EA system.The Dissertation concludes with some proposals and legislative suggestions in relation to the EA system reform. First, the design of the reform should be considered in the view of the rules of law, and the reform process should be pressed ahead with in conformity with laws, and legislations should be made to acknowledge and guarantee the results of reform. Second, in order to address the deficiencies of the current EA system, the reform should be carried out with regard to the following 5 aspects:1) to transform government’s EA function from environmental supervision to public services delivery; 2) to adopt vertical administration for EA authorities at central and local levels, and appropriately decentralize the power at central and local levels; 3) to integrate environmental and resources management authorities so as to form a unified environmental monitoring and management system and implement EP-based GDP performance appraisal system; 4) to establish a long-term mechanism for regional and river-basin-based coordination and management; and 5) to improve the legal system governing environmental duties of the government and have in place sound mechanism for public participation and supervision. Then the Dissertation puts forward specific legislative suggestions regarding these five aspects of reform.