On The Public Participation In The Assessment System Of Environmental Impact In China

With the implementation of the assessment system of environmental impact, known as one of the most successful "policy innovation" in the 20th century of human history, public participation system as a means of getting decisions democratic, rational and systematical has been engaged in the whole process of the environmental impact assessment, which gives forceful drive to the coordinated development of environment and economy.Although the regulations in the assessment law of environmental impact in PR China issued in 2002 gained substantial progress than in previous years, there still leaves much to be desired in the aspects of legislation and practical implementation with regard to the system improvement concerning the public participation and the assessment of environmental influence. All these will prevent the positive effect of public participation in the assessment of environmental impact into full play, and curb the formation of the public participation system in the assessment system of environmental impact.Therefore, starting from the foundational theories of public participation in the assessment system of environmental impact and on the basis of conducting comparative analyses into the public participation system and practice of environmental impact in developed countries and regions, the writer discusses the hypotheses of improving the public participation system in the environmental impact in a systematic way from the integrated perspective of substantive law and procedural law, with the present situation of environmental law and practical situation in China taken into account. The hypotheses include: endowing precisely citizens with the right to protect environment in a legal sense (establishing the environmental right in an substantive sense and a procedural sense), working out administrational procedural law, information publicization law, identifying the legal status of the environmental protection NGO, and implementing environmental litigant system for public interests, etc.