Professor Qin Tianbao was Invited to Participate in the "Second Sino-French Law and Judicial Exchange Week" Activities

From October 12 to 13, 2017, Professor Qin Tianbao, Vice Dean of the School of Law and Director of the Institute of Environmental Law, participated in the Second “Sino-French Law and Judicial Exchange week" activities at the invitation of the French Embassy in China. The theme of the event is "Urban Change and Environment: Exploring New Urban Law Adapting to the 21th Century". Professor Qin Tianbao presided over the first session of the roundtable meeting "Exploring the Status Quo of China", and made a keynote speech in the "World Environment Convention Draft" session. At the same time, Professor Qin attended the reception held at the ambassador's residence on the 12^that the invitation of the French ambassador to China and delivered a welcoming speech on behalf of the Chinese side.

The first session of the meeting "Exploring the Status Quo of China" was presided over by Professor Qin Tianbao. In which, Ge Feng, a friend of the Institute of Environmental Law and Director of Friends of Nature, talked about the role environmental organizations plays in the promotion of environmental law in China with a focus on the exploration of soil conservation law.

Professor Qin Tianbao attended the reception held at the residence of the Ambassador at the invitation of the French Ambassador to China and delivered a welcoming speech on behalf of the Chinese side. He pointed out that green, low-carbon and sustainable development path advocated by the Paris Agreement adopted in France fit very well with China's promotion of ecological progress and green development concept. In this context, the cooperation between the two countries' environmental law will surely become a new field and highlight. He took Wuhan University and other universities as an example, introducing fruitful exchanges and cooperation results achieved by institutions and scholars from both sides in the field of environmental law. He also expressed his wish that scholars from the two countries should make more intellectual contributions to the development of environmental law and environmental rule of law in China and France through mutual exchanges and in-depth discussions.

In the "World Environment Convention Draft" session, Yann AGUILA, judge of the Supreme Administrative Court of France and Chairman of the Club des Juristes, and Professor Qin Tianbao made keynote speeches. Professor Qin elaborated his views on how to achieve "the World Environment Convention", he shared his observation from five aspects, namely the current situation of international environmental law, the path selection of the convention, the principle of good governance, the core elements and the prospect of drafting the Convention. He pointed out that the present draft is mainly based on existing treaty as well as soft law induction and summary, the goal of which is to realize national and global sustainable development, and lean towards implementation, compensation and other areas while respecting the balance between national sovereignty and global interests.

During the meeting, Prof. Qin and representatives from China University of Political Science and Law, Nankai University and the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences joined the talk with Ms. Bao Jiajia from the Culture and Education Cooperation Office of the French Embassy in China. The two sides reached a preliminary agreement on the content and manner of strengthening environmental law teaching and scientific research cooperation between the two countries. In addition, representatives from the Institute of Environmental Law also distributed the publicity materials of the Institute to the participants and had extensive exchanges with old and new friends to further expand the scope of the international cooperation and reached a lot of consensus.