It's one of the longest and most complicated environmental disputes on the record, and we'll tell you about it in just a few minutes.

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There are more than 50, 000 environmental disputes in China every year.

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It has been especially active in environmental cases, where lawyers are fighting a rearguard action on behalf of communities affected by environmental degradation, and in property-law disputes, where the vast expansion of home-ownership has caused many conflicts between the new owners and property developers or the state.

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It has to become more open and transparent. (At Mexico's insistence, its press officers have been gagged since May 1st.) It is increasingly asked to adjudicate on sensitive issues such as food safety and environmental protection that have become the stuff of trade disputes in a globalising economy.

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Indeed some of the new actors in such disputes, such as consumer-rights activists and environmental groups, may not be susceptible to economic reasoning.

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For years they were caught up in disputes over whether the air at ground zero was really toxic -- the Environmental Protection Agency long claimed it was safe -- and whether the illnesses could be linked to the attack site.

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