On The Principle Of Protection Priority In Environmental Law

The principle of giving priority to protection,as one of the environmental law basic principles,has been written into the “Environmental Protection Law of the People's Republic of China(2014 Revision)” in 2014.Through the comparative analysis of domestic and foreign policies and laws,and the analysis of some studies about related principles of environmental law from domestic scholars,this paper believes that the principle of giving priority to protection also known as the principle of giving priority to environmental protection,which means that in order to achieve the sustainable development of human society,the environmental benefits should be as a priority,and the behaviors of environmental protection should have priority over the behaviors of development and utilization.The concrete intensions of this principle are the priority of environmental benefits and the priority of protection behavior.Based on the analysis of the relationship between the principle of giving priority to protection and the coordinated development,we can see that the principle is the result of coordinating economic and social development and environmental protection.To discuss the theoretical bases of this principle,it is considered that sustainable development,environmental right,environmental justice and environmental ethics are the bases of social goals,the basis of civil rights,the basis of legal value and the moral basis of environment respectively.In addition,this paper introduces the types of the protection behaviors about the principle of giving priority to protection,it is considered that these behaviors include: the protection to restore quality,the protection to maintain quality,the protection to improve quality,the protection by rational utilizing and the protection by prohibit utilizing.It also discusses the basic standards of these protection behaviors include the environmental quality standards,the upper limits of resource utilization and the ecological red lines.Finally,in order to effectively implement the principle of giving priority to protection,we must take the following four measures to realize it,including policy formulation,legislation,law enforcement,justice,etc.