On the Procedural Value of the "Green Principle" in The Civil Code: The Practical Dilemma of Qualified Plaintiffs in Environmental Civil Public Interest Litigation

The "green principle" includes a public-interest attribute of the environmental right, and the procedural environmental right is an important part of environmental right. China's environmental civil public-interest litigation has such practical problems as narrow scope of qualified plaintiffs and low litigation ability and enthusiasm. In order to solve the existing problems properly, the "green principle" should be taken as the guidance and the realization of the environmental right as the purpose. The concept of procedural environmental right should be embedded into the way of the current civil litigation system and the existing "private right model" of judgment should be transformed into a "public value model", giving citizens and general groups the status of qualified plaintiff. It is also necessary to implement the lawyer assistance system and the judicial assistance system in the field of environmental civil public-interest litigation and establish a special fund for the kind of litigation to effectively reduce the litigation cost of plaintiffs. Moreover, the document submission system needs to be improved, the party note system needs to be added and the plaintiff's ability to provide evidence needs to be enhanced so as to make the "green principle" well integrated with environmental civil public-interest litigation.