“Public Interest Litigations and Environmental Nonprofits”, 18 May 2020

In May 2019, the litigation initiated by Friends of Nature against Hyundai Motor over exhaust pollution, which… ended with an agreement to create a charitable trust, was chosen for the ninth edition of “China’s top ten public interest litigations (2019)”…

This particular case lasted for several years, and an agreement was finally reached through mediation. The parties concerned agreed to use a charitable trust to manage the compensation funds and effectively use them for environmental restoration, something that has an important value and significance for ensuring the effective use of the compensations and promoting the implementation of environmental public interest litigations.

… the public interest litigation brought about by the China Green Development Association against Taobao and the Shenzhen Sumei Corporation for selling equipment to help the owners of cars cheat on their annual inspections was selected for the fifteenth edition of “China’s top ten influential lawsuits (2019)”.

The reason for its selection is that the case helped to further clarify the responsibility for air pollution in the Internet age and expand the scope of environmental public interest litigations. The second instance court of the case clearly pointed out that online stores should strengthen information management and establish an effective supervisory system…

In July 2019… it was revealed that according to the latest data, since the implementation of the revised Environmental Protection Law in January 2015, People ’s Courts at all levels have ensured that social organisations can raise environmental civil public interest litigations, 298 civil public interest litigations cases filed by social organisations have been accepted in accordance with the law, and 119 cases have reached a conclusion…

It is inevitable that there should only be a handful of social organisations that are capable and willing to file public interest litigations… As for why there are few social organisations willing to throw themselves into such cases, and the number of cases filed is relatively small, the reasons are quite complicated.

They include not only the thresholds and obstacles brought about by the imperfections of the system itself, but also the resistance that the overall development and growth of social organisations encounter in the external environment, as well as the challenges brought about by the organisations’ own limited capabilities and lack of resources…