Making market operators responsible for having and giving access to information about their impact on the environment is an important part of changing the way the economy operates in relation to environmental sustainability. To this end, the Norwegian access to environmental information act has established a right for the public to access to environmental information from private entities such as business enterprises. In this point, the Norwegian Act goes further than international rules, such as the Aarhus Convention, and also further than any other national legislation. This article presents the rules on access to information from business enterprises, and presents and discusses examples from the implementation of these rules.

The relationship between environmental and human rights is very significant. On this basis, humans shall have the right to claim to live in a healthy environment. In China, the study of environmental rights began in the 1980’s. After more than thirty years of discussions on environmental rights, there are a series of environmental rights theories in China. However, scholars have not formed a consensus on some fundamental theories of environmental rights. Moreover, some experts consider that environmental rights include substantive environmental rights and procedural environmental rights, whereas others argue that environmental rights only include substantive environmental rights. Furthermore, the nexus and difference between the right to environment and environmental rights are not clear. “Environmental rights” are treated as a broad concept, its scope includes all rights which are related to the environment. They certainly do not only include substantive, but also procedural environmental rights. Even though the introduction of substantive environmental rights has faced both legislative and practical difficulties, the topic has become a central issue in Chinese academic research.

The past decade has seen remarkable progress made in the field of environmental information disclosure in China. While the overall institutional changes and the motivation/willingness of the government to open up information are important conditions, China’s encounter with revolutionary Information and Communication Technological (ICT) advancement and rapidly emerging big data quickly changed China from an “information poor environment” to an “information complex environment.” While most previous studies centered on those drives/constraints that were recognized in established informational governance framework, recent advancement in ICTs and emerging big data posed new challenges, opportunities and research questions. When increasing information disclosure became a new game changer in environmental governance, China has had to cope with risks and pitfalls in a new technology-empowered information environment as well. This article updated previous studies on legislation/ regulations/policies regarding environmental information disclosure in China and their implementation effectiveness, and paid special attention to China’s recent informatization progress and emerging big data. Information disclosure was treated as a process that includes data/information generation/collection, disclosure, functional pathways of communication, and direct/indirect impacts. Changes in environmental information disclosure should be understood in a broader context of overall changing environmental governance and informatization in China. It is important to understand ICTs and information disclosure as a double-edged sword. Normative, substantive, and instrumental benefits of disclosure as well as collection and reporting costs, the issue of targeted transparency, and the risk of unintended use should be strategically considered. Principles and guidelines need to be developed to avoid pitfalls while maximizing benefits.

Along with the increasing use of multi-party arbitration, mounting issues relating to it have recently become heated topics. One of the various facets concerning the availability of class arbitration has gathered overwhelming discussion in the US. According to the decisions of the United States Supreme Court, whether class action is applicable is probably decided by the arbitrator’s interpretation of the parties’ intent when an adequately drafted arbitration clause is silent on this issue, regardless of the correctness of his/her construing of the contracts. The contract interpretation theory is a conclusion of existing jurisprudence while the question of arbitrability doctrine may be a hint or inkling from a recent court decision. Comparing these two sides, it is better to regard the availability of class arbitration for silent agreements as a matter of contract interpretation. Although it is preferable to regard the availability issue of class action as a contract interpretation question, some restrictions on the arbitrators’ broad contract interpretation needs to be imposed so that the parties’ real intent can be properly enforced.

This article examines the reception of Western corporate governance models and standards into the Chinese system of corporate governance. It investigates how China has adapted these models to fit in with its political, economic, and cultural norms in relation to its state owned enterprises (SOEs), a large number of which are now listed in onthe Fortune Global 500 list. Overall, the study highlights that firstly, the importance of culture in the shaping and functioning of human behavior as well as that of institutions, and in their subsequent path dependence; and secondly the limited impact of property rights, minority shareholder rights, and financial markets as arbiters of the destination of investment funds.

This study examines fieldwork-methodology problems in China that few scholars have discussed in social science, criminology and law, and describes the author’s experiences in conducting fieldwork for an empirical study of criminal justice in mid- and western China in three aspects: general access to the courts and procuratorates, informed consent in interviews, and access to courtroom trials and case files. It argues that researchers need to understand and exercise social, cultural and political sensitivities in overcoming various challenges and difficulties in data collection. Making use of guanxi, building up trust, and developing friendship are essential to the access to the field in China.

Chinese public air transport market has been undergoing restructuring and marketization since the reform and opening up, which plays a special and significant role in the social and economic aspects of the state. After the enforcement of the Anti-Monopoly Law of China in 2008, the issue of effective regulation on the anticompetitive practices of public air transport market has become the focus of the relevant discussions, in which monopoly agreements and concentration of undertakings play a key part. Only thorough understandings of and insights from the competition motives of relevant industry, markets and enterprises based on comprehensive legal controls, can the relevant anti-monopoly legislation and law enforcement be effectively optimized and improved.