Research On The Model Of Environmental Law Enforcement At The Grassroots Level In My Country

In 2017,the "Green Principle" was introduced into the general provisions of the Draft of Civil Code,which presents the new development concepts of the Party since the 18th National Congress of the CPC.The environmental pollution(negative externality)is a typical example of market failure.The property of public goods of the environment makes the effective environmental protection depend on the regulation of government.According to current environmental laws and regulations in China,the environmental protection bureaus in China are enmeshed in both a vertical environmental protection administrative hierarchy and horizontal ties to local governments at the same administrative level.Although the Ministry of Environmental Protection was replaced by the Ministry of Ecological Environment according to the latest institutional reform program of State Council in 2018,the major duties of the grass-roots environmental protection bureaus(no matter how their names are changed)will not change in a substantial way.In environmental enforcement,grass-roots environmental protection bureaus lie at the end of the organs of state power,have broad ranges of management and numbers of management objects whose levels are obviously different,and serve as a supporting strength for the central,provincial,and municipal governments.However,based on our empirical research,we find that there are lots of problems in the enforcement,such as wrongful enforcement,lax enforcement and passive enforcement.This dissertation aims to draw lessons from the law enforcement styles(strategies)theory in the West,through the empirical research method,to explore the current environmental law enforcement style in local EPBs,to analyze problems existing in environmental enforcement,and to put forward suggestions and opinions to solve these problems.To be more specific,this article,based on a review of the well-developed law enforcement style theory in the West,extracts four dimensions for measuring the grass-roots environmental enforcement style:the formality,severity,initiative,and priority of law enforcement.Using these four dimensions,we conduct an in-depth analysis of the actual state of the grass-roots environmental law enforcement model in China.The first conclusion is that the grass-roots environmental law enforcement model in China is an alternative law-enforcement model,that is,law enforcement is vulnerable to external factors.Eternal intervvention leads to a swing between formality,severity,priority,and initiative.For example,the amount of penalties is different in similar cases.Local EPBs like to impose fines instead of other more stringent administrative penalties.Stringent law enforcement(such as a large-scale shutdown of polluting enterprises)occurred during enforcement campaign,and lax enforcement occurred after the enforcement campaign.In the following,the problems and dilemmas existing in grass-roots environmental law enforcement in China are analyzed.These problems include:lack of enforcement resources(manpower,financial resources,material resources),lack of public supervision during law enforcement,limited autonomy in law enforcement,etc.The paper then explores several factors that influence the effectiveness of grass-roots environmental administrative law enforcement in China,including:prevalence of local protectionism(political factors),emphasis on economic development,light environmental protection(economic factors),passiveness of social actors(social factors).Finally,this paper proposes specific suggestions in order to improve the effectiveness of grass-roots environmental law enforcement in China.Our suggestions include strengthening enforcement capacity,establishing risk-responsive enforcement style,enhancing the government information regime,broadening bodies of supervision to realize external supervision;improving the relevant environmental supervision and management systems to guarantee the autonomous right of environmental law enforcement.