The Research Center was founded in June 2001, utilizing resources of the Law School of Chongqing University. It was listed as one of the key research bases for humanities and social sciences of Chongqing in December 2006. The Research Center is established to “carry out original academic research and science-based legislation analysis in frontier areas of environment and resources law of west China, and ultimately make substantial innovative contributions to the legal system construction for environment and resources of China that are fundamental, strategic and prospective.” Prominent achievements have been made by the Research Center in fields such as science-based development orientation, building of scientific research teams and modernization of scientific research approaches. Four development directions that have been preliminarily formed include “resource protection and comprehensive utilization law”, “basic theory of environment and resource law”, “economic development and environment & resource protection law” and “west China foreign trade and environment & resource protection law”.