Speaker: Yanmei Lin, Professor of Law, Vermont Law and Graduate School
Discussant: William P. Alford, Jerome A. and Joan L. Cohen Professor of East Asian Legal Studies; Director of East Asian Legal Studies; Chair, Harvard Law School Project on Disability, Harvard Law School

Over the past decade, Chinese NGOs gained formal roles in environmental governance through public interest litigations, access-to-information requests, and participation in legal processes. That space is narrowing today. A more centralized political climate, the expanded authority of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, increased prosecutorial control, and campaign-style enforcement have reasserted central state power. Drawing on cases like Friends of Nature v. State Grid Co. and the Green Peacock case, this lecture explores how civil society actors continue to adapt, influence, and navigate in a shifting political landscape, raising open questions about what forms of engagement remain viable, and what strategies still make a difference.

Yanmei Lin is Acting Director of the Maverick Lloyd School for the Environment and Professor of Law at Vermont Law and Graduate School, where she also serves as Deputy Director of the U.S.-Asia Partnerships for Environmental Law. Her work focuses on comparative environmental rule of law and the role of civil society. She has supported environmental strategic litigation, public interest legal networks, environmental damages and compensation system’s legislative reform and community legal empowerment initiatives in collaboration with environmental NGOs, legal clinics, judicial institutions and academic partners in the region.