21 Jul 2008: Report Until recently, the idea of environmental
advocacy was largely unheard of in China. But that’s changing
rapidly. At a legal aid center based in Beijing, Xu Kezhu and
her colleagues are helping pollution victims stand up for their
rights. The second in a series on Chinese environmentalists.
Down a dark corridor of a university campus in Beijing, a gold
plaque on a wall of peeling paint marks the home of the Centre
for Legal Assistance to Pollution Victims, a small office that
is arguably the epicenter of public-interest law in China.
Inside the cramped suite, shelves buckle under the weight of
binders stuffed with thousands of hand-written accounts of
polluted rivers and contaminated fields across China.
Embroidered gold and maroon tapestries adorn the walls, gifts
from the villages whose legal cases the center has helped win.
Xu Kezhu is the center’s deputy director and an environmental
law professor at the China University of Political Science and
Law, where its offices are housed. Unlike