Study On The Plaintiff’s Standing In Environmental Public Interest Litigations Against The Administrative Agencies

Environmental problems are nothing new in social arena, but associated environmental public interest litigations have been debated over by academics and practitioners for years. The recognition of civil actions in the environmental public interest litigations has provided certain judicial remedies against damages to the environmental public interests. However, since infringement to the environmental public interests can be infinitely varied with diversified infringers and in complex types, it is impossible to get the environmental public interests fully protected merely in form of actions filed by prosecutors against civil entities or individuals. Environmental public interests need to be secured by virtue of effective oversight of environment authorities and other administrative agencies exercised by citizens, especially in the issuance of pollutants discharge permits, approval of environmental assessments and other regulatory activities. Administrative agencies are designed with statutory functions and material power in terms of social and public interest protection and environmental pollution control. To this end, the critical point of environmental public interest protection lies in environmental public interest litigations against administrative agencies. Environmental public interest litigations shall also be in the form of administrative litigations, which may enable more members of the society to get involved in the protection of public interests and oversight on the government. The environmental administrative behaviors by administrative agencies are restricted by oversight thereon by virtue of judicial means, so as to prevent the environmental public interests from being harmed by illegal administrative behaviors and contribute to the establishment of a welfare-oriented and law-based government from the point of regime.This paper is comprised of four parts. The first part introduces the basic facts about the case of Mr. Li v. the Environmental Protection Bureau on the ground of the haze took place in February 2014 and three divergent views arising out of this case, comparatively analyzes typical environmental public interest litigations against administrative agencies in Mainland China and abroad. Also in this part, an argument is presented addressing these three views suggesting that the disputes of this case focused on the nature of litigation and the plaintiff’s standing. The second part analyzes the legal theory related to this case, including explaining the concepts of environmental public interest litigations against administrative agencies, and comments on the dispute focus whether Mr. Li had standing in the environmental public interest litigation against the administrative agency in question; it comes to a conclusion that Mr. Li should have standing to file an environmental public interest litigation against administrative agencies. In the third part, through further explanation of the legal theory as the basis for judicial protection of environmental public interests, this paper analyzes the grounds of rights that citizens are entitled to file public interest litigation and explain that the public trust theory, the theory of private attorney-general, the theory of citizen republicanism and the theory of environmental rights are the theoretical basis for citizens’ entitlement to the plaintiff’s standing in the administrative public interest litigation about the environment. In the forth part, concrete proposals are presented for the systematic design of plaintiff’s standing in environmental public interest litigations against administrative agencies in our country, with a conclusion that plaintiff’s standing provided to individuals, non-governmental organizations of public interests satisfying certain conditions as well as procurators can fully realize the very intention of citizens in seeking judicial remedies for environmental public interests.