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On The Standing Of Environmental Public Interest Litigation

Posted on:2011-12-13Degree:MasterType:Thesis
Country:ChinaCandidate:F Q ZhangFull Text:PDF
GTID:2166360302470145Subject:Environment and Resources Protection Law
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It's effective and important for the public's enforcing environmental laws and protecting the public's environmental rights to establish and perfect environmental public interest litigation. The core of environmental public interest litigation is how to establish the standing of it. First, it reviews the present situation of environmental public interest litigation in China. Second, this thesis compares the development of standing in environmental public interest litigation in statutes and in case laws ripe in foreign countries. At last, it describes a standing standard in accordance with our national condition and grants standing to prosecutor's offices, environmental groups, government offices and individuals in legislation so as to protect the public's environmental rights and interests and promote the sustainable development of our country effectively.This paper consists of introduction, four chapters and conclusion.Chapter one summarizes present judicial practice and institutional practice on standing in environmental public interest litigation in China with empirical research method, which is the emphasis of the thesis. It collects and sorts out relevant cases happened in our country, and describes evolution of standing institution in environmental public interest litigation. Legislation is lagging behind practice, in some places, such as Guizhou, Jiangsu and Yunnan, environmental protection courts were built and local regulatory documents were enacted in order to expand standing in environmental public interest litigation, where procurator's offices, environmental protection agencies, environmental protection organizations and property management agencies in communities were permitted to initiate environmental public interest litigation. Many cases of environmental public interest litigation have been heard in China, the types of plaintiff consisted of procurator's offices, individuals, agencies, environmental groups and public lawyers, which are disinterested in the cases. Studies of practice indicate that in China, the bottleneck of restricting the development of environmental public interest litigation is the faulty standing system.Chapter two introduces the relevant theories of environmental public interest litigation system, including environmental rights doctrine, common trust doctrine, private attorney general doctrine, which demonstrate justification for standing in that litigation from different aspects and have successfully guided the development of environmental public interest litigation.Chapter three analyzes statutes and case laws on environmental public interest litigation in foreign countries comparatively, such as the U.S.A., Japan, Germany and India. The tendency of the development of standing in environmental public interest litigation is to expand standing, which originally broke traditional limit in case law, and then was found in provisions in environmental laws gradually. Characters of expansion of standing are relaxing the standard of standing, expanding the scope of standing, adopting both environmental administrative public interest litigation and environmental civil public interest litigation. The lawsuits of protecting environmental public interest may be thrown out of court because of the interest-related standard for standing in our 1itigation system, which aren't instrumental not only to protecting public's environmental rights and interests but also to environmental protection.Chapter four designs the standing system of environmental public interest litigation in China, which include amendments to the standard of standing, expanding the scope of plaintiffs and perfect the relevant supporting measures of the standing system. The types of standing are prosecutor's offices, environmental groups, government offices and individuals in legislation, and the plaintiffs must meet sufficient interest standard which means injury in fact and causality at the same time. In addition, to establish essential institutions is important to guarantee access to justice, such as lawmaking, institutional safeguarding so as to protect the public's environmental rights and interests and promote the sustainable development of our country effectively.
Keywords/Search Tags:environmental public interest litigation, standing, empirical research, citizen suit, safeguard measures
PDF Full Text Request
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