Zhang Jingjing is a Chinese environmental lawyer, a lecturer in law at University of Maryland Law School, and Director of the Center for Transnational Environmental Accountability (CTEA). Through her work as the inaugural litigation director with the Beijing-based Center for Legal Assistance to Pollution Victims (CLAPV), Zhang won several milestone environmental litigation cases in the Chinese courts and was called by the media “China’s Erin Brockovich.” She was selected as a Yale World Fellow in 2008, won the SEE-TNC Eco-award and the Women of Courage Award given by the U.S. Embassy in Beijing in 2011. Her work has been featured in the New York Times and Newsweek, and she was featured in a number of documentaries. She worked for Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) China Program and served as the deputy China Country Director of PILnet. Zhang was awarded the prestigious Open Society Fellowship in 2016 and has been working on monitoring China’s global environmental footprint and investigated Chinese companies’ environmental performances in Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia. She uses legal strategies to ensure Chinese overseas companies’ compliance with environmental laws and international human rights standards. Zhang earned a Master of Public Administration from Harvard University Kennedy School of Government, a Master of Laws from China University of Political Science and Law, and a Bachelor of Laws from Wuhan University. She was a visiting scholar at Yale Law School in 2009 and Harvard Law School East Asian Studies Program in 2013 and 2014.


Zhang Jingjing will participate in the World Justice Forum working session The Law’s Role in Protecting the Most Vulnerable Populations from Climate Change