Environmental Public Interest Litigation Incentives

Environmental public interest litigation is the important weapon for environmental protection, which not only promotes to reduce local protectionism and awaken the environment protection consciousness of the public, but also acts as an effective measure to punish the offenders and protect the interests of the public environment. Although there's no relevant law of environmental public interest litigation in China, lots of beneficial exploration has been done in judicial practice. For instance, environmental protection tribunals have been set up in Guizhou, Yunnan, and Jiangsu. Regulations have been made in some areas to define the contentious questions such as qualification of plaintiff, and to regulate that all levels of prosecutors, environmental administration function departments, environmental protection organizations, residence community administration department can act as plaintiff sued. However, the new measure encountered the embarrassing situation of very few, or zero environmental public interest litigation, which seriously impacted the further development of environmental public interest litigation in our country. The reason, first of all, the vacancy in legislation leads to no legal basis. Secondly, a good many of difficulties in reality hinders the progress of environmental public interest litigation. In response to these problems, it's necessary to perfect legislation, define the system for environmental public interest litigation, consummate relevant elisor judicial measures, and gradually solve the practical questions in litigation, so as to promote the positive and healthy development of environmental public interest litigation in China.