Comparison Of Environmental Class Action Between China And U.S To Improve The Legal System In China

In recent years, with high speed development of economy and urbanization, thegrowing phenomenon of environmental tort and group action assume the unceasing rise inour country. They are caused by environmental pollution and ecological destruction, andhave become a major social problem in our country. The object of these environmentaldisputes often influence a considerable area to a particular majority, which involve anumber of a wide range and last long time and is prone to lead the participants in theproceedings a large number of group litigation. Class actions overcome the defects ofdifficult to win and evidence, which often occur in the individual lawsuit. More importantly,it has significance for the prevention of environmental pollution and damage. Class actionin U. S. and representative action in China mainland are the forms of action which aredesigned to settle mass environmental tort dispute. The author here will compare thesimilarities as well as differences among the two forms of action，point out the problemsabout our litigation system in order to optimize the class action system of our country.Besides the preface and the concluding remarks，it is divided into five sections：The first part sets forth general theory of environmental class action. This part mainlyadopts legal theoretic analysis method. At first, the concept and characteristics ofenvironmental class action are analyzed and defined in this part. The author point out thatthe environmental class action refers to one special civil litigation system that the largenumber of victims of environmental rights caused by the same environmental torts, so theeligibility of an individual or a small number of parties on behalf of a range of victims bythe victims to sue for infringement of human or not a certain behavior, the effectiveness ofthe court decisions can restrict the representative and other victims. Secondly, analysis thetheoretical basis of the environmental group action from the jurisprudence and economicsaspects. Finally, analyzes realistic and theoretic significance of class action ofenvironmental tort. This part is the base of the thesis and makes the foundation of thefollowing discussion.The second part of the paper elaborates the class action of America. This part selectsthe United States as the research object, which emphasizes legislation and practice in thefield of environmental class action. This chapter also discusses the historical evolution, the elements of the constitution, its type and procedural safeguards system of the U.S.environmental group litigation system, and the author gives evaluation of this system.Based on the design of U.S system, this article obtains some valuable reference accordance,which plays an important role in class action system in our country.The third part of the paper elaborates the general theory of representative action ofenvironmental class action in China, and gives a comprehensive analysis of this litigationsystem through in-depth study of its background, nature, elements and types.The forth part of the paper compare the environmental class action system betweenChina and the U.S. China’s representative litigation system learn from the reasonableelements of the U.S. class action, but there are innovations in contents. They have the samepoints in requiring a lot of people, permitting the members to sue in behalf of the group, theeffectiveness of the judgment have expansionary and requiring eligibility representative.They have the differences in the generation method of the representative, the representativeauthority, the judgment of the effectiveness of expansion, how the parties to determine, andthe extent of the court involved in litigation. This chapter will gives a thorough elaboration.The fifth part put forward some suggestions on the improvement of our country’senvironmental lawsuit system. There are many problems in the application of theenvironmental representative class action system， including the process of therepresentative lack of scientific, applicable conditions are too strict and representative of theregistration system needs to be reformed, which does not correspond to the originalintention of this system. For its own defection and the judicial environment，thererepresentative action system has not been widely applied in the practice. Therefore，thisessay analyses the reasons which cause unsuccessful operation of the representative actionsystem， and puts forward some ideas and suggestions on the modification of therepresentative action system on the basis of inspecting and benefiting from the relatedsystems of U.S. The author proposed to improve the principle of the following legislation: itshould be conducive to protect the legitimate rights and interests of the man to berepresentative, to exert the representatives’ role to the maximum extent and the court tointervene to most people on behalf of the State. In addition, the paper proposed thatjudiciary should reform the generation ways of the representative，expand the scope of therepresentative litigation system, recommend exit mechanism, and establish a separateenvironmental representative procedure rules.