Field Notes From the Far East: China's New Public Interest Environmental Protection Law in Action

摘要

On May 15, 2015, the Nanping Intermediate People's Court in Fujian Province conducted the first-ever Chinese trial involving environmental civil public interest litigation. The case, which concerned resource destruction and environmental restoration related to an illegal mining site, was heard under China's new Environmental Protection Law (EPL), a strongly worded mandate that includes, among other potentially far-reaching provisions, a right of standing for nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to bring environmental cases. While China's long-term commitment to environmental protection through judicial action is not yet clear, this case, and others still pending, may one day be seen as a pivotal turning point in Chinese environmental litigation, akin to landmark U.S. cases in the 1960s and early 1970s such as Sierra Club v. Morton and Calvert Cliffs Coordinating Comm. v. Atomic Energy Comm'n~5 that heralded a sea change in U.S. environmental protection and established the role of the courts in enforcing environmental laws.