The Role of Law and Social Movements in Environmental Conflicts: A Japanese Case Study

环境退化是工业化社会面临的最严重问题之一。补救或预防环境污染造成的危害需要许多人的集体活动。社会法学研究多年来一直关注法律与纠纷、纠纷转化和社会变迁之间的联系。本项目将利用这些文献中的理论和研究来研究权利的扩大或缩小以及对环境冲突的处理。本项目将以日本神户的一起新的集体诉讼为案例，追溯一场社会运动的形成，以及它与工业界和政府在空气污染问题上的冲突的转变。通过采访参与500起日本公民在工业污染案件中提起诉讼的参与者，调查人员将追踪单个公民的不满如何产生受害者组织、政府立法、随后政府退出对受害者的援助以及参与诉讼。因此，深入的研究可以详细说明影响政治和法律行动发展的不同社会力量以及两者之间的关系。这项研究将说明政策形成过程中涉及的复杂的法律、文化和政治过程，以及这一领域的理论与解释对环境变化的反应的相关性。它有望扩展我们对法律制度、政策变化和日常公民行为之间联系的理解，并为日本和其他地方的冲突管理模式提供重要的新见解。权利是如何表达的，法律是如何在与环境有关的问题上被动员起来的，这对于理解全球环境变化、权利运动的发展以及法律动员的过程具有极其重要的理论和政策意义。

Environmental degradation is one of the most serious problems facing industrialized societies. Remedies or prevention of harms caused by environmental pollution require collective activities of many people. Sociolegal research has for many years focused on the connections of law to disputing, dispute transformation, and social change. This project will draw on theories and research from this literature to examine the expansion or contraction of rights and the handling of conflicts about the environment. Using a new class-action lawsuit in Kobe, Japan as a case study, this project will trace the formation of a social movement and the transformation of its conflict with industry and government over the issue of air pollution. Through interviews with participants involved in the filing of 500 lawsuits by Japanese citizens in an industrial pollution case, the investigators will trace how the grievances of individual citizens produced a victims' organization, government legislation, subsequent government retreat from aid to victims, and involvement in litigation. Thus, the in-depth study permits detailing the different social forces which have affected the development of both political and legal action as well as the relationship between the two. This research will illustrate the complex legal, cultural, and political processes involved in policy formation and the relevance of theory in this area to the explanation of responses to environmental change. It promises to extend our understanding of the connection between legal institutions, policy change, and the actions of everyday citizens as well as provide important new insights into patterns of conflict management in Japan and elsewhere. How rights are articulated and how law becomes mobilized on issues relating to the environment have immensely important theoretical and policy implications for understanding global environmental change, the development of rights movements, and the process of legal mobilization.