Environmental and Climate Justice in Palestine

To have a clean, safe, and functional environment is not only essential for the purpose of preservation, but also imperative for safeguarding the most fundamental of human rights. Resolution 45/94 of the United Nations (UN) General Assembly also stresses and acknowledges that: “all individuals are entitled to live in an environment adequate for their health and wellbeing” (United Nations Digital Library System, 1991). Environmental and climate justice, which: “emerged in the context of the local environmental struggles of directly oppressed groups”, is a global movement dedicated to ensuring equal protection of people’s human rights (i.e., water, health, life, etc.) in the face of the climate crisis. Moreover, health, environment and human rights are part of the 2030 agenda (in particular, SDG 1, SDG 5, SDG 6, SDG 7, SDG 13, SDG 16, SDG 17). Individually, both environmental and climate justice are rooted in an intersectional outlook, by which they highlight the common threads between communities and the people’s inclusion, irrespective of race, class, or gender, in the pursuit of justice. On the other hand, they recognise and acknowledge the role and consequences of climate change in economic, social, and political dimensions;thus, drawing emphasis on the rights of people under the emerging inequities. In the case of Palestine, the Palestinian community is increasingly becoming vulnerable to these effects and the resulting inequalities of climate change. This vulnerability stems from: 1) The right to life;clean WASH;equitable work opportunities;access to resources;and free movement;are all examples of human rights that the Israeli colonial regime infringes upon;2) Infrastructure is essential for climate adaptation: 61% of the West Bank is ultimately barred from building infrastructure (B’Tselem, 2019) and Gaza Strip has major gaps in infrastructure due to intentional destruction by Israel;3) Palestinian deprivation of the sovereign right to natural resources by Israel;4) Apartheid system in water accessibility: Israeli water usage per person is over three times higher than that of Palestinians (their usage is under the WHO recommended minimum per day) (B’Tselem, 2023);and 5) Violent settler attacks. In 2022 alone, the Applied Research Institute-Jerusalem (ARIJ) recorded 1527 settler attacks that targeted land, properties, livestock, agriculture and even Palestinian civilians. The ongoing neglect of these concerns and the persistent colonization of Palestine by Israel unequivocally and unwaveringly affect the human rights of Palestinians. The power dynamics at play especially hamper the Palestinian ability to exercise and fulfill their inalienable human rights and to tackle the obstacles to justice in their environment.

Advancement Towards Spatial Justice:The Barrier-Free Environment Construction from a Gender Perspective

Space is both a product and a producer of social relations.In the spatial domain,gender blindness has long existed,limiting women’s rights of access to and use of space,leading to structural oppression of women’s rights,and giving rise to new gender inequalities.The barrier-free environment construction has the functions of eliminating physical barriers and generating societal norms,and when combined with social changes,can facilitate justice correction across multiple dimensions.However,barrier-free environment construction itself,as a means of justice correction,also suffers from gender blindness.There remains room for improvement in the areas of facility construction,information exchange,and social services within the realm of barrier-free environments.In response to this phenomenon,gender equality offers a new critical perspective.Therefore,integrating a gender perspective into the barrier-free environment construction,focusing on the spatial rights of women,especially groups with multiple vulnerabilities,such as disabled women and elderly women,can contribute to the advancement towards spatial justice.

Crossing the Achilles Heel of Algorithms:Identifying the Developmental Dilemma of Artificial Intelligence-Assisted Judicial Decision-Making

In the developmental dilemma of artificial intelligence(AI)-assisted judicial decision-making,the technical architecture of AI determines its inherent lack of transparency and interpretability,which is challenging to fundamentally improve.This can be considered a true challenge in the realm of AI-assisted judicial decision-making.By examining the court’s acceptance,integration,and trade-offs of AI technology embedded in the judicial field,the exploration of potential conflicts,interactions,and even mutual shaping between the two will not only reshape their conceptual connotations and intellectual boundaries but also strengthen the cognition and re-interpretation of the basic principles and core values of the judicial trial system.

Objects of Criminal Legal Aid--Center On Judicial Justice and Human Rights Protection

The object of criminal legal aid refers to the person in a criminal case who has the right or eligibility toapply for legal assistance and who receives it. According to jurispru- dence, the object （or aid recipient） is a party in a given legal case, who is granted legal aid. They are often among the disadvantaged group in criminal cases, since most of them are mentally challenged, lack free- dom or have health problems.＇ Both international and domestic laws have certain norms regarding objects of criminal legal aid. Our domestic law places more emphasis on ＂defen- dants＂ while downplaying ＂suspects＂ and ＂victims＂ in identifying objects.

Important Guarantee for Judicial Justice——Huang Jin on Improving Judicial Protection for Human Rights

The Decision on Certain Issues on Comprehensively Deepening the Reform, which was endorsed bythe Third Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China （CPC）, advocates improving judicial protection for human rights, making human rights protection one of the practical measures for implementing the principle of respecting and ensuring human rights, and making improvement of the judicial protection of human rights an important part of comprehensively deepening the reform. Prof. Huang Jin, president of the China University of Political Science and Law, was interviewed by the journal.

Judicial Protection and Restorative Justice of the Support Rights and Interests for the Elderly Rights——Taking the Sample of Judgement Documents from 2013-2018 as Analysis Object

The support rights and interests of the elderly is one of the core issues of an aging society.Judging from the judgment documents on support dispute cases in recent years,maintenance disputes mainly occur in the kinship structure of parents and children,the support obligators are mainly men,the content of support is mainly material appeals.In the judicial process,there are some characteristics worth studying,such as lawyers,intervention,judges,thinking,reasoning and expression.In view of this,the current development direction of the judicial protection of elderly’s rights and interests in China should be carried out around the goal of"restorative justice"and efforts should be made,such concept renewal,system improvement and spiritual support prospect.

Judicial Administration Reform Promotes Human Rights——An interview with Zhang Sujun,Vice-Minister of Justice

Following is a transcript of an interview given to Human Rights by Zhang Sujun, China＇s Vice-Minister of Justice, on how the on-going judicial administration reform promotes the protection of human rights in the country.

An Empirical Assessment and Analysis of the United Nations Convention on Contracts Judicial Applicability in China

Chinese domestic legislation on the judicial applicability of international treaties has been unsettled,especially under the Civil Code,which is silent on this issue.However,previous studies have depicted an image of a“pro-CISG”attitude in Chinese legal practice,which is distinguished from the tendency to circumvent the CISG in other jurisdictions such as the U.S.This contradictory phenomenon,namely the absence of guiding norms versus the embracement of the CISG in judicial practice,is rarely discussed,especially within the context of civil codification and recent external economic challenges.To verify this paradox,a manually collected dataset of 223 court decisions from 2013 to 2023 identifies some basic characteristics of the CISG judicial applicability in China,including the application rate,legal reasoning paths,citation frequencies of specific provisions,and some qualitative observations about the judicial behaviors in the international sales dispute resolution.The main finding is that Chinese courts have been applying the CISG at an obviously higher rate,compared with both their foreign counterparts and the general rate of applying foreign law in the international civil and commercial litigations in China.To explain this gap between“law in book”and“law in action,”the context of Chinese judicial practice should be considered.Despite the vagueness of domestic legislation,the judicial policy promotion,the innovative guiding cases system,the legal transplantation,and other factors may contribute to the“pro-CISG”attitude.As for the future promotion of CISG in the Chinese style of international commercial dispute resolution,these factors may coordinate with the legislative improvements.

Environmental Justice through Community-Policy Participatory Partnerships

Geographical information systems (GIS) are often used to design environmental justice (EJ) policy interventions. Leveraging GIS and other graphics, overburdened EJ communities can learn from maps that geographically link environmental burden (EB) and social disparity (SD) data. Visually representing EB and SD data concretizes the unjust distributions of environmental and broader inequitable societal policies. These maps can be used to efficaciously assess EJ disparities created by such policies through exploring socioeconomic characteristics with local communities. Given the great variation in how GIS EJ applications measure and visualize EB and SD, we present a community-based participatory design (CBPD) lens to collaboratively work across overburdened communities and support making EJ data accessible to all stakeholders. Our location proximity approach is a powerful way to assess overburdened EJ communities because it relies on user-predefined boundaries, and it doesn’t use a single fixed unit of reference to prioritize areas of intervention. Moreover, most areal unit applications use ordinal measures, such as percentiles, and multidimensional indexes, which are intelligible to understand by many residents. Leveraging a community-based participatory design methodology, we present our novel Proximity to Hazards Dashboard (PHD) that includes data on asphalt plants and industrial corridors, hazards often missing from state-level dashboards but very relevant for city policymaking, as well as more traditionally used environmental hazard sources. The use of the tool by policymakers and community members suggests that EJ categorization should focus less on procedural benchmarks and more on systemic change for policy impacts in ways that sustain the participatory nature of our approach.

Human Rights in Civil Judicial Documents:Conception and Function

Traditional human rights theory tends to hold that human rights should be aimed at defending public authority and that the legal issue of human rights is a matter of public law.However,the development of human rights concepts and practices is not just confined to this.A textual search shows that the term“human rights”exists widely in China’s civil judicial documents.Among the 3,412 civil judicial documents we researched,the concept of“human rights”penetrates all kinds of disputes in lawsuits,ranging from property rights,contracts,labor,and torts to marital property,which is embedded in both the claims of the parties concerned and the reasoning of judges.Human rights have become the discourse and yardstick for understanding and evaluating social behavior.The widespread use of the term“human rights”in civil judicial documents reflects at least three concepts related to human rights:first,the rights to subsistence and development are the primary basic human rights;second,the judicial protection of human rights is a bottom-line guarantee;third,the protection of human rights aims to achieve equal rights.Today,judges quote the theory of human rights in judicial judgments from time to time,evidencing that human rights have a practical function in judicial adjudication activities,and in practice this is mainly manifested in declaring righteous values and strengthening arguments with the values and ideas related to human rights,using the provisions concerning human rights in the Constitution to interpret the constitutionality,and using the principles of human rights to interpret blurred rules and rank the importance of different rights.

气候司法本土化的三重逻辑:规范、价值和功能

在全球气候治理司法化转型的背景下,中国司法系统在应对气候变化中呈现出全面积极的态度。气候司法作为环境司法专门化的新领域,亟须形成体系性的本土化方案。气候司法本土化的核心要义在于彰显主体性,需要将气候司法的概念体系、功能定位、审判机制、裁判体系与规则等置于中国法治现代化特定背景和社会结构条件之中予以把握,其内在逻辑是涵括规范体系、价值序列和功能定位的动态体系。当前,中国气候司法规范体系中的多层次立法呈现间接、倡导属性,且多元化司法规范创制不足,体系化任务尚未完成,继而诱导出气候司法规范的周延性困境和融贯性难题。在此情形下,气候司法所保护法益的识别和核心价值尚未被清晰地析出,且科学上的不确定性、政策权衡、经济诱因等诸多外部因素限制着对气候变化案件的价值判断。这些都深刻地影响气候司法作为公益型司法与治理型司法的双重功能定位和发展方向。为此,气候司法本土化的方式与进路需要基于规范、价值和功能三重逻辑及其呈现的问题或要求展开。首先,强化多重规范秩序的塑造,从公私法协同出发推动气候变化立法体系化,通过强化次级气候司法规范凝聚共识,借助多元法律解释方法提升气候司法规范体系的融通性。其次,以利益为核心建构法律论证的权威,通过涉碳利益的衡量强化裁判的实质理由,通过气候环境利益的多维保护强化裁判的开放性,通过外在因素与法律因素的平衡强化裁判的权威理由。最后,精准塑造气候司法的双重功能,以风险预防原则构建预防性公益型气候司法,以政策的司法化构建服务于“双碳”目标的治理型气候司法。

Methodology of Marx for Ecological Justice

Historical materialism provides a methodology for solving the problem of ecological justice,that is,consciously constructing the socialist power system is the prerequisite and foundation for realizing ecological justice.In essence,the fundamental nature of the socialist power system,namely,“affinity to the people”,determines the realistic possibility of ecological justice.

Marx’s Ontology of Social Power System for Ecological Justice

Historical materialism provides the ontology basis to understand the contemporary ecological justice problem,which is the perspective for analyzing ecological interests from the nature,structure,and transition of the social power system.The transcendence of Marx’s thoughts on western mainstream environmental justice theory lies that it does not based on the“speculative ontology”of metaphysics,but on the basis of“realistic ontology”of social power system.

论中国式司法现代化

司法现代化是国家治理现代化的重要组成部分,事关法治文明进步和经济社会发展。中国式司法现代化是中国共产党领导、以人民为中心、以中华司法文明为根脉、以高远法律价值为目标、以能动司法为功能定位、以司法体系建设为主体工程、以司法体制改革为根本路径、以现代科技应用为强大动力、以提升涉外司法能力为紧迫任务的司法现代化。

破解海岸带环境司法困境:基于陆海统筹原则

我国海岸带环境案件存在管辖权冲突、法律适用有争议、原告资格不明确、诉讼性质认定有争鸣、诉讼程序衔接未确定、司法执行机制不完善等环环相扣的问题,造成海岸带环境司法困境。究其根源,主要在于陆海“二分法”的分类思维影响较大,其与陆海统筹合为表里的内涵尚未得到全面、深入的理解。为破解海岸带环境司法困境,既要重视海岸带环境案件的特殊性,将其确立为类型化案件并由海事法院专门管辖,又要贯彻陆海统筹原则,实现司法规则内在融贯、法治环节协调一致。

Climate Justice Dimensions:Approaching Loss and Damage and Adaptation towards a Just City

The escalating occurrence of severe climatic events over the past decade,with a projection for further intensification due to the climate emergency,underscores the critical role of urban and regional planning in climate action towards just cities.Municipalities and regions are both significant contributors to CO_(2)emissions and are vulnerable to the adverse impacts of climate change.This paper contends that urban and regional planning must undergo a paradigm shift to address this challenge.Climate justice,encompassing dimensions of inequality and environmental equity,is a pivotal dialogue in these contexts.Through a comprehensive review,this study contributes to the evolving landscape of climate justice planning and policy,offering insights that could resonate across the Global South and beyond.As an illustrative case,the authors delve into Brazil’s climate challenges,discussing adaptation planning and post-disaster response,and emphasizing the need for localized and community-driven initiatives.This article delves into the interplay between Loss and Damage,adaptation,and just cities,with a focus on the Global South.The authors scrutinize the emerging discourse on Loss and Damage,its associations with climate impacts,and the quest for a just and equitable approach.The work advances the understanding of the distinction between adaptation and Loss and Damage actions,highlighting the significance of a dedicated fund for addressing Loss and Damage in vulnerable countries.

生态修复目标司法确认的类型化构造

生态环境修复目标决定了生态环境修复责任的配置程度。司法确认生态环境修复目标的实践中存在损害前状态和功能的适用不合理、可接受风险水平被基本弃用和具体指向笼统模糊等问题,其原因在于司法中恢复原状思维的影响难以消弭以及现实危害的规制被过度关注。司法应当将生态环境修复目标划分为基线水平、人体健康可接受风险水平和生态环境可接受风险水平,然后根据生态环境的特质确认适宜的修复目标。对于价值较高的生态环境应当将其修复到基线水平,对于价值特殊的生态环境,即便在经济不合理的情况下,也应当将其修复到基线水平。对于人类密切相关的受污染生态环境应当将其修复到人体健康可接受风险水平。当生态环境可接受风险水平较为宽松之时可以考虑将其作为修复目标进行适用。

基于环境正义的城市空间治理研究和实践进展

基于环境正义的城市空间治理研究与实践已成为国内外城市规划、建设和管理的关注热点话题。文章在界定环境正义与城市空间治理概念的前提下,构建基于环境正义的城市空间治理内涵和认知框架,并利用CiteSpace软件分析基于环境正义的城市治理研究的主题特征和变化情况。针对既有的城市环境不公正问题,文章构建了基于环境正义的城市空间治理内涵框架,从认知正义、程序正义与分布正义3个层面分析环境正义问题,并从治理目标和路径两个方面分别讨论城市空间治理如何迈向环境正义,以期为新时期我国开展以公平正义为目标的高水平城市空间治理提供借鉴。

分配·承认·能力:职业教育高考制度正义的多维审视

职业教育高考制度正义是揭示其作为一项“好制度”的根本所在,旨在彰显职业教育类型化变革和职业教育人才选拔的时代精神。职业教育高考制度正义指高等职业院校入学招生考试制度的正义属性,既包含职业教育高考制度中的正义追求,也包含职业教育高考制度内容的正义以及制度执行手段的正义,还包含职业教育高考制度所形成的高考文化、高考风俗、高考习惯以及高考心理、高考舆论等制度亚文化的正义性。职业教育高考制度正义还是多元化、层次化的复合正义,具体包含优质教育资源的分配正义、教育主体地位的承认正义、个体自由发展的能力正义。是故,职业教育高考制度在制定与执行中需要强调权利的平等、机会的公平、民主的平等,以教育考试制度的正义性变革实现人的自由发展。

面向治理现代化的公共服务理论思考:内涵、要求与路径

公共服务作为保障国家和社会良好运行的物质载体,逐渐成为现代国家治理的合法性基础。面对人民群众需求层次提升的现实要求和推进治理现代化的时代使命,公共服务被赋予新的内涵和要求。而这种变化的具体要求和表现以及由此对公共服务供给方式带来的挑战,并没有在当前的研究中得到充分讨论。新时期公共服务现代化的要求在于实现服务配置的公平正义、服务供给的可持续性和服务供需的有效匹配。因此,有必要基于公共服务在内容体系、供给侧和需求侧的变化,结合公共服务供给的基本过程,构建理解治理现代化下公共服务发展要求的分析框架,重新思考公共服务的供给方式,提出公共服务的空间路径、财政路径和技术路径。一是科学配置有限的资源,优化空间功能与设施布局,重构公共服务的空间结构和空间秩序,以空间资源配置回应空间正义。二是明晰政府、市场和社会等主体的责权关系和角色,完善层级政府间的财政制度设计,以财政治理促进可持续发展。三是通过打造数字化的公共服务场景,利用数字技术优化公共服务需求识别和反馈机制,以技术赋能实现供需有效匹配。