20 October--21 October 2017, Wuhan, China

Human beings are dependent on the natural environment for a respectable and prosperous life. The characteristic of being one type of “commons”, however, makes the environment subtle to many threatens. Many environmental problems, such as the diffusion of chemicals, climate change and the depletion of fisheries and loss of biodiversity have come into the public’s attention and have aroused broad concerns since the mid twentieth century. These inter-related environmental problems across different levels (global, regional and local) have triggered the shift from environmental regulation to environmental governance. With the increasingly involvement of non-state actors, private and hybrid from of regulation are playing an increasingly important role in environmental governance. New modes of regulatory instruments are interacting with traditional command and control instruments, depicting a more complicated governance picture. In this workshop, we seek to present the latest law and economics’ research on governing the commons. We welcome both theoretical and empirical papers, as well as studies examining problems at local, national and international levels. Contributions related to these topics are especially welcome:

Ø  The governance structure for environmental problems and how different regulatory regimes interact

Ø  The role of different actors, including both state and non-state actors in governing environmental problems; how does political economy influence environmental governance?

Ø  The various instruments used in governing the commons and their interaction; are those instruments effective?

Ø  The enforcement of rules and instruments; their behavioral influence on regulatees

Ø  How the scale of governance influences the effectiveness of governance; the North-South differences in governing environmental problems

The presentation will be around 25 minutes, followed by a 20 minutes discussion. This workshop is organized by the Research Institute of Environmental Law, Wuhan University on Friday 20 and Saturday 21 October, 2017 at Wuhan University, China. The idea is to publish suitable papers following the workshop in the Chinese Journal of Environmental Law. It is also possible to only give a presentation or just join the discussions during the workshop.

Abstracts for presentations and registration can be sent before 10^th September, 2017 to Liu Jing (liujoyjing@163.com).