Study On Environmental Labeling Legislation

As a burgeoning environmental management method, environmental labeling has been well established and become widely popular in many countries. Not only from the academic aspect but also from the practical aspect, it is necessary to study the legal issue of environmental labeling. However, the current study being carried out is focusing mainly on the environmental labeling system itself and the impact of the environmental labeling on international trade while it pays little attention to the basic theory and the legal issue of environmental labeling system. All the above-mentioned limitations prevent the development of the environmental labeling system. This paper tries to promote and deepen the basic research of environmental labeling from legal aspect. This research can be a valuable reference to improve China's environmental labeling legislation.In the foreword of this paper, according to the statement of current study and developing trend on environmental labeling, the necessity to study on the basic theory of environmental labeling issue is stated.The main body of the paper includes five parts.The first part of this paper is an introduction to environmental labeling. The history, the definition, types and characteristics of environmental labeling are previewed. Then the legalization of environmental labeling and the conception of environmental labeling legal system are illustrated respectively.The second part of this paper analyses the basic theories of environmental labeling legal system. Economic, ethical and jurisprudent theories are demonstrated to support the further research. In details, the theories of uneconomic externality, environmental ethic, eco-justice, green equity, eco-order and eco-benefit are stated to establish the fundamental support to the environmental labeling legal system.The third part of this paper is about the oversea and international developments of environmental labeling legal system. First of all, the author focuses on some legal issues in the legislation of other countries, like some regulations on establishing the environmental labeling standard, applying the labeling, using the labeling, the obligations of the governments and the public participation in environmental labeling activities. Then some international legal documents of WTO & ISO are introduced, which are relative to environmental labeling. Finally, the tendencies in developing...