New Patterns of Resource Management for the Circular Economy: a Chinese-European Comparative Outlook on the Evolution of Circular Economy Law

The aim of the chapter is to explore how the evolution of a legal framework for the development of circular economy shaped new legal structures in both economic and civil law, with a special emphasis on the analysis of the European and the Chinese context. The analysis will start from the assessment of the legal culture which fostered, in both contexts, the development of legal rules advocating a new model of resource and energy management, with special regard to the development principles incorporated in the recent evolution of both the socialist market economy (in the Chinese context) and the social market economy (in the European context). Secondly, the chapter will focus on the instruments designed to implement circular economy, from the perspective of development planning law. Furthermore, we will assess and discuss the influence of circular economy law on the development of civil legal relations. In particular, we will focus on the theoretical and practical value of Art. 9 of the Chinese Civil Code (the so-called “green principle”), in comparison with the notion of product “durability” as incorporated in the recent European directives on sales. In the conclusion, the paper will try and summarize relevant findings, pointing out which instruments different legal systems prefer in order to implement new models of resource governance and attempting to define the main features of the models compared.