Scope And Quantification Of Damages In Environmental Civil Public Interest Litigation

In recent years,In recent years,ecological damage and environmental pollution incidents occur frequently,causing very serious damage consequences.A good ecological environment is a typical social public interest.The protection and management of the ecological environment is of great significance to the sustainable development of human society and concerns the vital interests of every one of us.The damage to the ecological environment itself is a new kind of damage,and the traditional civil law did not involve the relief of environmental public interest damage in the past.At the same time,in order to make up for the deficiency of administrative law enforcement in environmental public interest protection,China established the environmental civil public interest litigation system,and it is constantly improving in the accumulation of judicial practice experience.The Civil Code distinguishes the protection of environmental public interest from the protection of private interest,so that the Civil Code is in line with the provisions on environmental public interest litigation in the Civil Procedure Law and relevant judicial interpretations.The compensation for ecological and environmental damage should focus on both prevention and repair.The determination of the amount of compensation is a difficult problem in environmental civil public interest litigation and also the core part of the dispute between the parties.The compensation for damage to the ecological environment is different from that in the traditional environmental private interest litigation,because it is difficult to define the scope of compensation and quantify the damage.However,relevant laws and judicial interpretations have different definitions on the scope of compensation,lack of unified calculation basis and method,and the environmental damage identification and assessment system is not perfect,which greatly reduce the practical effect.This paper mainly takes five parts as the entry point for a detailed discussion.The first chapter mainly discusses several problems that need attention in damages compensation of environmental civil public interest litigation,differentiates environmental civil public interest litigation from environmental private interest litigation in the traditional sense,and clarifies the nature and positioning of environmental civil public interest litigation.This paper analyzes the concept of ecological environmental damage and lays a foundation for defining the scope of compensation.Finally,the paper clarifies the guiding ideology that should be carried out in the identification of ecological environmental damage and the determination of the amount of compensation,in order to better guide the judicial practice.The second chapter introduces the compensation scope and damage quantification method of the US natural resource damages litigation and the EU environmental legal system,and draws useful parts from them,so as to provide reference for the improvement of the relevant system in China.The third chapter compares the provisions of the scope of compensation in the Civil Code and relevant judicial interpretations,analyzes the necessity and rationality of bringing each compensation item into the scope of compensation,and discusses the problems that should be paid attention to in the definition of the scope of compensation.The fourth chapter summarizes the controversies and problems in the scope of compensation and the quantification of damages.It is controversial whether non-use value should be included in the scope of compensation and whether punitive damages can be applied to environmental public interest litigation.However,the abuse of the virtual governance cost method,the lack of uniform application and calculation standard for the loss of service function,and the excessive reliance on the appraisal and evaluation opinions for the judge’s determination of the amount of compensation lead to the judges’disagreement in the quantification of damages compensation.The fifih chapter puts forward targeted solutions and suggestions to the problems existing in the quantification of compensation for damages,introduces the concept of non-use value,and defines the scope of compensation for damages.Standardize the application of virtual governance cost method,unify the applicable conditions and calculation methods of service function loss,construct the environmental damage identification and assessment system in line with China’s national conditions,and realize the balance between ecological environmental protection and economic development.