China’s Environmental Groups Encouraged to Sue Polluters

Posted by david on Jan 8, 2015 in Blog | 0 comments

Encouraging environmental groups to sue major polluters is an excellent development but the situation in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei corridor remains especially egregious as will be shown in the next post.

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China on Wednesday granted public interest groups more power to sue those that flout environmental protection laws, the country’s highest court said, as Beijing steps up efforts to curb pollution that regularly chokes major cities.

Social groups that work to fight polluters judicially will gain special status and have court fees reduced, the Supreme People’s Court said on its website.

They will also be allowed to sue firms or individuals across China, regardless of where the organisation is based.

The term the court used for the groups covers both NGOs and government-backed organisations, although it was not immediately clear whether independent environmentalists will benefit from the regulations.

China has more than 700 registered and regulated environmental protection groups, the official Xinhua news agency cited a ministry official as saying.

The new rules came into force on Wednesday, the court said, adding that they were issued “in response to questions on the matter”.

Premier Li Keqiang announced last year that the country was “declaring war” against pollution, and a series of measures have been announced.

Last month, six Chinese companies were fined a record 160 million yuan ($26 million) for discharging tens of thousands of tonnes of waste chemicals into rivers after being sued by a local government-backed social group.

– AFP