Sustainable Development And Environmental Law

The Earth provides the human beings with natural environment as indispensable living space which is never a separated part of the development of modern civilization. However, the rapid social development brings lots of adverse effects to the environment: the global environment problem is deteriorating, the economy and ecology are under threat, and even the existence and proliferation of human beings are problematic. The environment problem originally disregarded by legal system and international community is now gaining great attention and ultimately becomes a hot issue. It has made consensus in the World Summit on Sustainable Development from August 26 to September 4, 2002 that to ensure the existence and development of human race, Sustainable Development should be the guiding ideology to completely solve this problem. China is also making effort against the worsening environment problem, and the Environmental Law begins to be concerned by the people in China. This paper makes effort to discuss the solution of environment problem in China from the respect of the combination of Sustainable Development and Environment Law.With comparison method, this paper studies and discusses the Chinese Environment Law and Sustainable Development. Based on the achievements of the predecessors, this paper proposes the new suggestions. The main issues are disused in the following areas:Firstly, this paper systemically studies the theoretical problems of Sustainable Development, including the historical study of background, proposing, and the future of this ideology. Based on the status of China and the international community, this paper also discusses the basic connotation, features, principles, and meaning of Sustainable Development.Secondly, this paper discusses the status of the combination of Environment Law and Sustainable Development in China. In this paper, the ideology of Sustainable Development is considered to greatly affect the Environment Law in China, in the evidence of influence on the purpose, value orientation, system and execution of the Environment Law.At last, this paper considers that many problems remain for the Environment Law to implement the ideology of Sustainable Development and this target is still challenging in China. For example, the Chinese environmental system is not completed, and contradictions still exist between ecology and economy.The main characteristics of this paper are as following:First, not merely based on the purely theoretical study, the paper makes conclusion that the environment problem could only be solved by the combination of Environment Law and Sustainable Development on the fundamental of both theory and the illustration of actual situation.Secondly, aiming at the promotion of the combination of Chinese Environment Law and Sustainable Development, this paper is not listing the existed accomplishment, but basing ourselves on reality, seeking problems, and looking to the future. In this process, the author proposes the own opinions.