On Standing In Environmental Public Interest Litigations In Our Country

With the rapid development of our economy, the environmental pollution andecological damage are also following, especially in the21stcentury, environmentalproblems have become increasingly prominent, which not only restrict the economicdevelopment of the country, but also become a serious threat to citizen’s lives, healthand daily life. People have realized the importance of environment for human beingsmore and more profoundly, and legal awareness to protect the environment hasbecome stronger and stronger. Then how can we use legal weapons to safeguard theenvironment of public interest and to protect the environment that we live. In view ofthe particularities of environmental tort, academics and practice community startedlooking at a new system,“environmental public interest litigations”. Becauseenvironmental public interest litigations is the main proceeding to achieve the ends ofenvironmental right, public participation in environmental protection, and theprotection of the environment of public interest, and it is the judicial remedy forenvironment and a new type lawsuit to prevent and relieve “the damage to theenvironment”.To establish the institution of environmental public interest litigations, the mainproblem that we need to solve firstly is the problem of the standing, that is,“who” iseligible to initiate environmental public interest litigation and become the plaintiff ofthe litigation? The plaintiff is the initiator of the proceeding, an action would not havebeen formed without the plaintiff, so the problem of the standing is one of the mostcentral and crucial issues of establishing the institution of environmental publicinterest litigations. Current procedural law of our country is heavily influenced by“the theory of traditional party” of continental legal system, sue is strictly limited topeople who have a direct interest to cases and limited to private parties inadministration who are subject to specific administrative acts. Although the “principleof direct interest” has played a very big role in avoiding the abuse of the suit right ofcitizens and the waste of judicial resources, it only concerns the relief of privateinterest, ignores the existence of public interest, and puts the public interest in the crisis of lacking judicial remedies, environmental public interest is naturally noexception. That not only put a stranglehold on the development of environmentalpublic interest litigations, but is also unable to cope with continuing acts ofenvironmental hazards in practice. Therefore, the author conducts research anddiscussion mainly from the aspect of the standing of environmental public interestlitigations, proposes the perspective to expand the range of standing of environmentalpublic interest litigations, and thinks that the public, environmental groups andprocuratorial organs which are in order to safeguard the environmental public interestare all eligible to become the plaintiff of environmental public interest litigations. Infact, in the field of environmental law, relaxing restrictions on the standing ofenvironmental public interest litigations has become a general trend in nationalenvironmental legislation in the world. The author hopes to do some help on theconstruction of the institution of environmental public interest litigations through thestudy of the standing of environmental public interest litigations.This article starts with the concept of interests, public interest, andenvironmental public interest, clarifies what is environmental public interestlitigations through analyzing the basic concepts which are associated withenvironmental public interest litigations; and describes the relevance and necessity ofthe existence of the institution of environmental public interest litigations throughdiscussing the trust theory and the theory of environmental right and analyzing thevalue of the institution. On this basis, this article analyzes the concept of the standingof environmental public interest litigations, describes the new theory of thedevelopment of litigation—interest of litigation, and finds the theoretical supports forthe expansion of the standing of environmental public interest litigations. Then thisarticle introduces civil litigation of the United States, the whistle-blower lawsuit ofUnited Kingdom and group litigation of Germany, and learns the research experienceon the standing of environmental public interest litigations in those law developedcountries through comparison. Finally, this article describes the legislative provisionson plaintiffs qualification of environmental public interest litigations of China’sconstitution, procedural laws, single environmental statutes and the “public interestlitigation” clause added from the amendments of the Chinese Civil Procedural Law; and then through the enumeration of the seven typical environmental public interestlitigations cases and completing with the theory of environmental law and the realityof our country, further clarifies that citizens, environmental groups and theprocuratorial organs should have the standing of environmental public interestlitigations, when the environment is destructed, all of them can be the plaintiff toinstitute environmental public interest litigations before the courts to obtain judicialremedies. So the author thinks, if we want to establish the institution ofenvironmental public interest litigations for maximizing protection of environmentpublic interest and the homes we live, it is necessary to expand the scope of standingof environmental public interest litigations.