Study On The Prevention Of Environmental Civil Public Interest Litigation

Since the new century,China has experienced continuous social and economic development.While humans enjoy the gift of nature’s resources,unreasonable exploitation and environmental pollution have brought irreversible and significant damage to the ecological environment,which ultimately has a negative effect on human survival and development.China’s Civil Procedure Law provides for an environmental civil public interest litigation system,which has played a positive role in promoting the relief of environmental torts.However,for a long time,the focus of environmental civil public interest litigation has been on the post-event relief of ecological and environmental damage,neglecting the preventive judicial study of the environment,while the fundamental goal of environmental protection lies in the prevention of environmental risks beforehand,rather than the relief of damage afterwards.Therefore,the new concept of environmental protection has given rise to a new system,and under the principle of "protection first,prevention first",a preventive environmental civil public interest litigation system has been established and continues to develop.Preventive environmental civil public interest litigation refers to the system that allows the right person to file a lawsuit in court to defend his or her rights when it is found that the ecological environment is being infringed but the result of the damage has not yet appeared,and that significant damage or irreversible consequences will occur if the law is not stopped.The system is based on the theory of risk society,the theory of weighing interests and the theory of environmental justice,and has the value of being conducive to the realisation of the preventive function of environmental law,to the protection of citizens’ right to choose the procedure and to the development trend of environmental protection law.Currently,the legal spirit of risk prevention is embedded in the normative legal documents in the legislative field,and some cases of preventive environmental civil public interest litigation exist in judicial practice.So far,a comprehensive review of the existing legislation and judicial practice has revealed some problems faced in the current preventive environmental civil public interest litigation system for the public interest,including the vague concept of preventive litigation.This paper explores the problems faced by the current system of preventive environmental civil public interest litigation,including the ambiguity of the concept of preventive litigation,the narrow scope of eligibility of rights holders to bring lawsuits,the unreasonable allocation of the burden of proof,and the lag of preventive remedies.Therefore,this article explores the current development of the preventive protection of environmental civil public interest litigation in overseas countries and summarises the successful experiences that can be learned from China’s development,proposing to improve the specific connotation of "significant risk" and clarify that the judiciary is the only decisive subject of determination;to expand the scope of prosecution subjects to citizens and individuals,and to provide dynamic supervision of significant risk.In terms of the allocation of the burden of proof,the specific burden of proof between the plaintiff and the defendant is clarified;in terms of preventive remedies,the effectiveness and flexibility of remedies are enhanced by improving the injunction system,invoking partial exclusion of damages and alternative compensation measures,and applying settlement agreements,so as to enhance the operability of the system and avoid the In this way,the system can be made more operational,avoiding the situation of "system suspension" and ensuring the realisation of the preventive function,In order to prevent the continuous development of environmental civil public interest litigation and improve the system in the future.