Taking China to Court; Environmentalists Have Found an All-American Way to Challenge the Worst Polluters-Class-Action Lawsuits

Schafer, Sarah, Newsweek International

Byline: Sarah Schafer

Earlier this year, villagers in Xiping, in the southern Chinese province of Fujian, scored an unprecedented victory in a country still struggling to build a sound legal system. With the help of the Legal Center for Pollution Victims--a prominent nongovernmental organization in Beijing--they filed a U.S.-style class-action lawsuit against a chemical factory they claimed was polluting the local river and ruining their mushroom and cabbage harvests. Needing evidence, activists asked the villagers to collect samples of the greenish water near the chemical plant and to shoot photographs of dead bamboo and other plants.

The locals did so, and their efforts paid off. This spring a …

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Publication information: Article title: Taking China to Court; Environmentalists Have Found an All-American Way to Challenge the Worst Polluters-Class-Action Lawsuits. Contributors: Schafer, Sarah - Author. Magazine title: Newsweek International. Publication date: November 20, 2006. Page number: Not available. © 2009 Newsweek, Inc. All rights reserved. Any reuse, distribution or alteration without express written permission of Newsweek is prohibited. For permission: www.newsweek.com. COPYRIGHT 2006 Gale Group.

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