Environmental Public Interest Litigation in China: A Critical Examination

Abstract

Environmental public interest litigation (EPIL) by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) emerged in China over the last decade amidst the growing focus on environmental issues and the increasing political need to bring greater public participation to the area. This article examines the current practice of EPIL by NGOs in order to understand the potential flaws and deficiencies of NGO participation in this relatively new field of environmental litigation. The article sets out by exploring EPIL as a legal pathway for the public to become involved in China's environmental governance. It then analyzes the legal provision of environmental litigation in China before critically examining several instances of EPIL initiated by NGOs between 2015 and 2019. The article finds that NGOs show weaknesses in their current EPIL practice, including in case selection and litigation risk assessment, but are willing to test and potentially expand the scope of EPIL into new areas of environmental protection such as noise pollution and renewable energy. It concludes that these weaknesses and strengths of NGO involvement in EPIL reflect the constantly evolving landscape of environmental governance and environmental litigation in China.

The politics of securitization: China’s competing security agendas and their impacts on securitizing shared rivers

“…Government authorities alone determine how to approach resource management. China's legal framework has seen rapid developments regarding the scope of laws and the incorporation of public participation (Xie and Xu 2021). Yet this legislation is criticized for not opening up full and genuine public access to official decision-making, and for neglecting to incorporate a clear set of environmental rights for the public (Xie 2015).…”

Ten Years On: Rethinking Transnational Environmental Law

“…In the second article in this pair, Lei Xie and Lu Xu examine environmental public interest litigation (EPIL) in China. 20 The rise of EPIL in recent years is part of a larger trend: the Chinese government has invited increased public participation as it shifts towards more decentralized modes of governance to maintain social control and monitor diffuse local governments. 21 Throughout the 2010s, various reforms allowed EPIL suits to be brought both by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and by the procuratorate.…”

Untitled

“…Broadly speaking, environmental public interest litigation contains environmental civil public interest litigation and environmental administrative public interest litigation. The former aims to prevent or stop any harmful activities from enterprises and the latter intends to urge administrative agencies to take effective measures to protect the environment (Lei & Lu, 2021). In addition, some other relevant laws, such as the Criminal Law, Cultural Relics Protection Law, Standardization Law, Administrative Procedure Law, and Agriculture Law, etc., also provide environmental protection terms.…”

“…From the angle of environmental protection instruments, the right to an effective remedy can be found in Chapter 8 of Agenda 21, Article 235(2) of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Access to justice and effective legal remedies are crucial elements in both environmental protection and human rights protection (Lei & Lu, 2021). Chinese citizens still have not earned this right; individuals' standing in environmental public interest litigation has been excluded since 2012 and has not been restored yet.…”

“…According to case differences in nature, environmental litigation can be divided into environmental civil litigation (Table 4), ecological damage litigation, environmental administrative litigation and environmental criminal litigation (Jin, 2019). (Lei & Lu, 2021).…”