Hong, Mei; Yanjie, Yin --- "A Feasible Approach to Environmental Public Interest Litigation: The People’s Procuratorate as Plaintiff" [2012] ELECD 269; in Martin, Paul; Zhiping, Li; Tianbao, Qin; Du Plessis, Anel; Le Bouthillier, Yves; Williams, Angela (eds), "Environmental Governance and Sustainability" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2012)

Book Title: Environmental Governance and Sustainability

Editor(s): Martin, Paul; Zhiping, Li; Tianbao, Qin; Du Plessis, Anel; Le Bouthillier, Yves; Williams, Angela

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781781000472

Section: Chapter 6

Section Title: A Feasible Approach to Environmental Public Interest Litigation: The People’s Procuratorate as Plaintiff

Author(s): Hong, Mei; Yanjie, Yin

Number of pages: 13

Extract:

6. A feasible approach to environmental
public interest litigation: the people's
procuratorate as plaintiff
Mei Hong and Yin Yanjie

6.1 INTRODUCTION

Faced with environmental pollution, the environmental administrative organiz-
ations in China, such as the Environmental Protection Agency and the Maritime
Authority, are able to exercise their executive power. The people's procura-
torates,1 as state organs of legal supervision, are entitled to supervise the envi-
ronmental administrative organizations' performance of their duties; and to
institute criminal and civil litigation against the polluters. For many years, to
better safeguard the environmental public interest, local prosecutorial organiza-
tions in China have supported the use of environmental public interest litigation
in addition to criminal prosecution. In most instances, these actions have been
supported or initiated by the people's procuratorates. This chapter looks at this
practice, considers its legitimacy, and proposes reforms to ensure its more effec-
tive application.
A number of examples have illustrated the use of environmental public inter-
est litigation, all of them civil actions instituted by the people's procuratorates.
We discuss later public interest proceedings that have been initiated in Hunan
province, Guangdong province, Jiangxi province, and Jiangsu province. Such
public interest trials have dealt powerful blows against illegal actions that damage
the environmental public interest. In part such actions make up for deficiencies in
China's prosecutorial system concerning environmental crimes. However, these
separate and partial practices are local and occasional. They represent minor
breakthroughs, without systemic improvement in the overall prosecution system.


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