Events
CUHK LAW CCTL Transnational Economic Law and Dispute Settlement Group Seminar – ‘Environmental NGOs’ Compliance-Enhancing Roles: An Empirical Look at Civil Society Participation Mechanisms in FTA Environment Chapters’ by Ms. Siyu Bao (Online)
17 Jun 2026
5:00 pm – 6:00 pm (HKT)
Online (Zoom)
Siyu Bao is a PhD candidate and Graduate Lecturer at University College London Faculty of Laws. Her research centres on global climate governance and has been published on the World Trade Review and the Asian Journal of International Law. Her PhD thesis explores how non-State actors use civil society participation mechanisms to monitor and address States’ non-compliance with climate change-related obligations. She completed her LLB and LLM (International Economic Law) studies at Peking University, China.
The participation of environmental NGOs on the international plane has largely been discussed in the contexts of treaty negotiation and adjudication. However, their roles within non-adjudicative implementation and compliance processes—a notable feature of international environmental law—remain underexplored. This seminar discusses environmental NGOs’ compliance-enhancing roles, locating its analysis in two types of civil society participation mechanisms that modern free trade agreements have increasingly incorporated to monitor compliance with environmental provisions. Based on extensive empirical data collected from semi-structured interviews and documentary analysis, it maps environmental NGOs’ compliance-enhancing roles as informants, interpreters, and response generators and examines their breadth and limits.
Language: English
*CPD credits are available upon application and subject to accreditation by the Law Society of Hong Kong (currently pending).
