Law Commons^™

Water Pollution And Regulatory Cooperation In China, Hong Lan, Michael A. Livermore, Craig A. Wenner

Cornell International Law Journal

Government authority in China, while constitutionally organized as a unitary sovereign, is, in practice, a complex system of informal and formal divisions of authority between national, provincial, and local political actors. In the context of water pollution control, an issue of considerable interest in China, both central and subnational authorities have key roles. The incentives faced by some officials, however, are ill-aligned with environmental protection, predictably leading to inefficiently high levels of pollution. Recent changes in China's water pollution regime have the potential to create a more successful cooperative arrangement between the national and subnational governments. These reforms impose stronger …