Research On Jurisdiction Of Environmental Civil Public Interest Litigation

The development of economy lead to a series of social issues, one of which is thedeteriorating environment. The administrative measures alone to guard the environment hasfailed to address the ongoing problems of our country. Thus, environmental public litigation, atrendy solution on the judicial level, was brought in. Many nations (or regions) have institutedspecial litigation mechanism on the environmental public litigation globally. Despite suchlitigation system has been practiced for while in the judicial system and local regulations intoexploring the system, with a recent formal legislation, it’s still lack of supporting legislatedmechanism on the national level.Because of the absence of pertinent environmental civil public litigation, the jurisdictionof the system follows the one in routine civil procedure except for adopting special litigationin some local parts. However, the general jurisdiction in the civil procedure is susceptible tocause problems with new environmental civil public litigation. From the typical cases ofenvironmental civil public litigation suits, the paper analyzes the existing problems ofinconsistency between traditional civil procedure and environmental civil public litigationwith comparative study. It holds that with the premise of clear level of jurisdiction, theintermediate courts and the lower courts with environmental protection should have thejurisdiction. On the territorial jurisdiction, the lawsuit shall be placed under the jurisdiction oflower court where tort is committed.The paper consists of4parts. The first part introduces2typical environmental classaction cases and rational and irrational parts of jurisdictions from the perspectives oftraditional civil procedure and jurisdictions in local regulations. It points out the inconsistencyof jurisdiction standards between the new environmental civil public litigation and thetraditional procedure, the possible evasion of level of jurisdiction, the absence of support forthe lower court. The usual traditional territorial jurisdiction does disservice to the justice ofenvironmental class action and judicial authority. The designated jurisdiction could stall theperiod of adjudication which results in the waste of judicial resources.The second part emphasizes on the level of jurisdiction of environmental civil publiclitigation. It researches into the innovative practices of various environmental civil publiclitigation with the traditional level of jurisdiction as comparison. It believes that jurisdictionof environmental civil public litigation should be in the hands of intermediate court and lower court with special environmental protection court. Also the influence of cases should be takeninto consideration when determining level of jurisdiction.The third part emphasizes on the territorial jurisdiction of environmental civil publiclitigation. It researches into the innovative practices of various environmental civil publiclitigation with the traditional territorial jurisdiction as comparison. It holds that thejurisdiction of environmental class action should be in the hands of special jurisdiction andcourt where torts committed.The fourth part concludes that judicial interpretation of jurisdiction of environmentalcivil public litigation should be formalized, in which the court with environmental protectionshould be established.