| It seems to be always a conflict between environmental protection and economic development; just it was not so obvious before entering the capitalist society. The industrial revolution of the18th century, greatly contributed to the socio-economic development, mankind’s ability to transform nature also increased rapidly, but the shocking industrial pollution also followed by. People were punished by the world "eight public nuisance" incident which happened in nineteen forties. It also made people understanding that the benign development of economic requires a good ecological environment. To repair and control the environmental damage caused by industrial pollution, many countries have introduced environmental protection laws. The United States environmental legislation in the nineteen seventies makes its environmental protection law system far ahead of other countries, Environmental Citizen Suits precisely the outcome of the environmental legislation of this period. Due to public attribute of environmental citizen suits, the traditional plaintiff qualification system has become the obstacles to carrying out environmental citizen suits; the United States took the lead to try to breakthrough it.In this paper, I will research on the standing of environment citizen suits of America since nineteen seventies. The enlargement of standing of environmental citizen suits was influenced by four factors, such as environmental ethics, environmental movement, government failures in environmental administration and the new development of theory of the right to sue. The development of environmental ethics made environmental rights from nothingness state to a moral area. Severe environmental situation and the failure of the government push us to find a new way to protect the environment. The new development of the theory of the right to sue provides a theoretical basis for citizens to strengthen and supervise the government’s environmental law enforcement through litigation.The expansion of America environment citizen suit standing experienced a tortuous process. The attitude of federal legislation and case law on the enlargement of environmental citizen suit standing are very different. It can be said that the attitude of legislation is militant, while case law is more prudential. They together outlined a blueprint for the development of the America environmental citizen suits standing. Analysis the process of standing tortuous development, we can easily find that it is a concrete manifestation of the separation of powers system of the United States on the impact of environmental citizen suit standing system.Based on the research of overall standard, this paper further explores the subject scope of American environmental citizen suits. The main subject of America environmental citizen suit includes individual citizens, environmental non-governmental organizations, and administrative agencies (including prosecuting authorities). For the natural objects enjoy the plaintiff qualification perspective, I think this is a misunderstanding of the U.S. environmental citizen suits. In fact, the standing of natural objects only stays in the theoretical discussion stage; judicial practice has not explicitly confirmed this view, natural objects have not standing in the U.S. environmental citizen suits.Finally, I will discuss the current situation of standing in Chinese environmental public interest litigation and try to develop a new system. I think we ought to learn the useful experience of United States case law, gradual relaxation of environmental public interest litigation plaintiff qualification. Giving environmental administrative authorities, prosecutors, environmental non-governmental organizations and individual citizens’ plaintiff eligible and recognized the priority right to sue of environmental administrative enforcement and prosecutorial authorities, at the same time, give full play to the complementary role of environmental non-governmental organizations and individual citizens, the purpose of which is to improve environmental public interest litigation plaintiff qualification system and build eco-friendly society. |
