On December 3, 2021, The 2021 China Germany Human Rights Development Forum was jointly hosted by China-Germany Forum on Human Rights Development and Germany Friedrich Albert Foundation via video. Experts and scholars from China and Germany conducted discussions and exchanges on Green and Low-carbon Development and Environmental Protection. Professor Wang Canfa, from Environmental and Resources Law Institute of the Civil, Commercial and Economics Law School, CUPL, was invited to participate in the forum and made a keynote speech on the legal protection of China’s environmental rights from the connotation, protection status and legislative approach of environmental rights.

Professor Wang Canfa expounded the connotation, characteristics and nature of environmental rights, further introduced China’s legal protection of environmental rights through legislation, administration, judicature and society, and proposed that environmental rights can be clearly stipulated in the Constitution and citizens’ environmental rights can be protected by the provisions of Environmental Protection Law. He noted that it is clearly stipulated in Air Pollution Prevention and Control Law, Water Pollution Prevention and Control Law, and Environmental Noise Prevention and Control of Pollution Law, that citizens are entitled to have the right to clean air, clean water and tranquility, and the protection of environmental rights is further strengthened by clarifying environmental rights through judicial interpretation.