The Construction Of Environmental Public Interest Litigation Fund

With the issuance of the new Environmental Protection Law and the relevant judicial interpretations of environmental civil litigation, environmental public interest litigation has entered a new stage. However,the cases in the field fail to spring up,but decrease instead. Numerous reasons have contributed to this phenomenon,such as the ambiguous definition of "the relevant organs" and the unavoidable problem of the local interference.However, from the author’s point of view,the economic factor restricting the development of environmental public interest litigation system is the assumption of litigation costs. Those social organization qualified to bring the litigation commonly lack the charity funds whose source is also unstable. Faced with the expensive legal fees and appraisal fees,their inaction to file a lawsuit is predictable. Therefore,it is imperative to relieve the burden of costs of public interest litigation. In addition to the relief or delay in paying litigation costs from the perspective of the court,the transference of litigation cost is also applicable. This paper is to discuss one kind of the transfer categories,namely,the public interest litigation fund.This paper is divided into four parts. The first part makes a clear definition of the relevant concepts,legal basis.the necessity of environmental public interest litigation fund, and positive significance in establishing the litigation fund,laying the foundation for the development of the paper. The second part,combined with the exploration of public litigation fund in our country and the foreign relevant experience,concludes three modes of constructing the litigation fund,namely, legal person mode, charitable trust mode and government mode. In the third part,the author conducts empirical analysis on three examples,respectively the environmental public interest activist fund of Guangdong Provincial Environmental Protection Fund,5.12 earthquake relief charitable trust plan and Kunming environmental public interest litigation relief funds,in order to examine which model is more suitable for the establishment of litigation fund. The author believes that through the comparison,legal person mode is relatively mature,especially the establishment of special fund under the foundation. The fourth part selects special legal person mode and proposes some ideas concerning the establishment of special fund for environmental public interest litigation,the raising,maintenance and increase of funds as well as management,use and supervision of special fund.etc..This paper.to some extent,is beneficial in relieving the pressure of litigation cost and improving the motivation of public interest litigators and gives due play to the public litigation system in protecting the environment.