Development of Environmental Public Interest Litigation in China Seven Experimental Cases

Abstract

This paper givers introduction to the requirements set by specialized environmental courts for environmental public interest litigation, and analyzes the significant breakthroughs and remaining regrets for experimental cases of environmental public interest litigation in terms of defining standing issue, environmental public interest, application of precautionary principle, and polluter pays principle. Furthermore, this paper discusses the current obstacles in the development of environmental public interest litigation as well as the outlook of strategies and direction for bringing environmental public interest lawsuits in the future.

Keywords: Environmental Public-Interest Litigation (EPIL), Environmental Protection Tribunals, plaintiff’s competency in law, the precautionary principle, the Polluter Pays Principle (PPP)