Research On The Judicial Protection Of The Environmental Rights In Brazil

Chinese scholars' research on environmental rights is basically limited to developed countries such as the United States and Japan,and seldom pays much attention to developing countries.As the largest developing country in South America and a member of the “BRIC” with China,Brazil has very advanced environmental legislation,no less inferior to developed countries such as the United States and Japan,and Brazil has a mature judicial protection system for domestic environmental rights.Brazil' s special historical development process has created its domestic special environmental legal system,which has laid a solid foundation for future environmental legislation and judicial protection.During the colonial period,the colonists unrestrainedly exploited resources to cause irreversible damage to the environment,and citizens lacked environmental awareness;During the empire,the rulers enacted a series of legal systems to protect the environment,but the substantial justice of the protection of environmental rights was still missing;In the era of the Republic,the environmental rights were included in the constitution,which provided a constitutional basis for the environmental rights.Since then,Brazil has enacted a series of legislation related to the environmental rights,which has provided specific legal basis for the relief of the environmental rights,and a complete judicial protection system for the environmental rights has been implemented.Brazil' s main environmental rights judicial protection systems are two types: civil lawsuits and environmental public civil lawsuits.Civil lawsuits can be filed by any citizen against the government' s illegal administrative actions.Environmental public civil lawsuits are mainly prosecution public interest lawsuits filed by procuratorial organs to safeguard public environmental interests.In order to respond to highly professional and increasingly complex environmental cases,Brazil has continuously strengthened the construction of the prosecutor team.Among them,the experience of setting up a prosecutor' s office by river basin in the state of Minas Gerais is the most successful.In the environmental public interest litigation,the Brazilian prosecutor' s office has the functions of conducting civil investigations,signing “conduct adjustment agreement” and “initiating environmental public interest litigation” with the responsible party,which can promote the government to perform environmental supervision duties and promote the judicial authorities to protect the citizens' environment rights better.In practice,in the case of “Sao Paulo Municipal Prosecutor' s Office V.Metropolitan Electric Company”,the Supreme Court of the federal court of justice interpreted the provisions of article 225 of the constitution on citizens' environmental rights,taking the precautionary principle as one of the principles for the relief of citizens' environmental rights.This case demonstrates the positive position and positive attitude of the court towards the protection of citizens' environmental rights,and also provides material for the proof of the justiciability of environmental rights.The judicial protection of environmental rights in Brazil is of great significance: it provides an effective way for the relief of citizens' environmental rights,can fill legislative loopholes,prompts the court to review administrative actions against law,warns and educates citizens to protect the environment.For our country,China should actively promote the environmental rights into the constitution,so that a series of environmental protection systems have the constitutional rights to support them.At the same time,China should also improve the procuratorate' s environmental public interest litigation system to provide environmental rights to the constitution and judicialization of environmental rights Institutional basis.