Overview

This book offers readers an accessible and broad-ranging guide to Environmental Public Interest Litigation (EPIL), which has burgeoned in China over the past decade. The aim of this book is to provide a systematic review of Chinese experiences with EPIL in environmental matters, both with a view to gauging its success to date and well as discussing some more critical aspects. To this end, the book systematically examines the establishment and development of EPIL in China's legal, social, and political contexts. It examines particularly the significant role and functions of EPIL in China's environmental governance, and the far-reaching impacts on Chinese civil society and governments. It also offers readers an insiders' perspective in terms of procedural and substantive issues with respect to EPIL, by reviewing the institutional designs, theoretical underpinnings and specific mechanisms, the roles of various participants and stakeholders involved in this legal process. At the same time, it studies leading EPIL cases raised from environmental pollution, natural resource damage and ecological damage, and the effectiveness of environmental adjudication that sustains EPIL as a new form of judicial instrument. This book is written to remedy the gap between Chinese and English literature in this area of law. The analysis of these issues, through a historic and comparative perspective, reveals the strengths and weaknesses of the current legal regime and serves as a basis for recommendations for bringing about more effective EPIL in China.