Comparative Administrative Law Perspectives: China. Public Participation in China’s Environmental Impact Assessment.

Institutionalised public participation has been part of China’s environmental impact assessment (EIA) since the early 2000s. Hailed as a watershed for just and sustainable development, EIA public participation in fact showed a limited capacity to enable citizens’ influence on decision-making, largely due to the instrumental rationale of its real-life implementation. After the new Environmental Protection Law (EPL) came into force in 2015, the EIA procedure underwent thorough reform. Contrary to the expectations of many, the reform is likely to further constrain impactful public participation. Indeed, measures adopted by the Chinese government appear oriented towards a simplification of procedures, possibly at the expense of environmental due-diligence and inclusive decision-making. This may be amplified by the priority attributed to economic recovery in the (post) COVID era, as exemplified by trends unfolding in many industrialized countries.