2026-08-17 07:33
The Ecological Environment Code of the People's Republic of China has come into effect on August 15th. This is the second code in China and the world's first code named after ecological environment, marking a new level in the construction of ecological environment rule of law in China.
On March 12th of this year, the Fourth Session of the 14th National People's Congress voted to pass the Ecological Environment Code of the People's Republic of China. The entire code consists of 5 parts and 1242 articles, with an independent "legal liability" section established to build an integrated accountability system for civil, administrative, and criminal matters. It is positioned as a rigid "hard law" in the field of ecological and environmental protection. Recently, a reporter from Economic Daily interviewed Sun Xianzhong, a member of the 14th National People's Congress Standing Committee, the Constitution and Law Committee of the National People's Congress, and a member of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, to interpret the legislative logic, rule boundaries, subject constraints, and supervision path of the legal code responsibility system.
Reporter: The legal responsibility section of the Code is dedicated to a large amount of space. Unlike previous separate regulations on environmental protection, what are the unique features of this responsibility system as a whole? What analytical logic should be followed to understand and apply this system?
Sun Xianzhong: All laws have legal liability clauses, but the responsibility rules in this code have a larger volume and stronger binding force, making it a typical rigid legislation aimed at implementing the top-level requirements of protecting the ecological environment with the strictest rule of law. There are four special characteristics of legal liability in the code: firstly, the types of liability are fully covered, and civil, administrative, and criminal liabilities are fully stipulated; The second is the dual coverage of accountability entities, which not only constrains the responsible entities for pollution discharge and ecological damage, including legal and natural persons, but also focuses on regulating the performance responsibilities of governments at all levels; Thirdly, there are multiple channels for accountability, including administrative investigations, public complaints, civil litigation, and prosecutorial public interest litigation; The fourth is the rules of damage identification, causality, ecological restoration, etc., which are clearly distinguished from traditional civil and commercial laws. If law enforcement and judiciary mistakenly apply the responsibility rules, it will not only infringe on the legitimate rights and interests of the masses, but also fail to achieve the legislative purpose of the code.
The determination of legal responsibility for ecological environment cannot be separated from two basic legal principles. The first layer is the traditional civil law legal relationship theory, which revolves around the five elements of subject, object, rights, obligations, and responsibilities. Accountability must target specific subjects, clarify damaged legal interests and illegal facts, in order to accurately implement responsibility. The second layer is the exclusive analysis framework for public pollution infringement, which includes four essential elements: damage facts, harmful behavior, causal relationship, and compensation and relief. The Code absorbs and systematically upgrades the environmental pollution infringement rules from Articles 1229 to 1235 of the Civil Code of the People's Republic of China. Article 1052 of the Code establishes the principle of proportional punishment, and the accountability scale matches the facts, nature, circumstances, and harmful consequences of the illegal behavior; Article 1053 specifies that pollution and ecological damage causing harm to the rights and interests of others shall be subject to no fault liability. Regardless of whether the perpetrator is subjectively at fault or not, they shall bear civil liability, which is the basis for all accountability work.
Reporter: The Code has made a new refinement of the rules for proving "facts of injury", "risk of injury", and causal relationship. Compared with the Civil Code, it has formed stronger constraints. From what dimensions will these systems regulate the behavior of enterprises, institutions, and other producers and operators?
Sun Xianzhong: Traditional civil law is basically only a legal regulation of personal and property damage that has actually occurred and only refers to specific subjects, and carries out actions to hold infringers accountable. This code greatly expands the boundaries of damage determination.
In terms of determining causality and providing evidence, the rules of this Code are more rigid than those of the Civil Code. Traditional civil litigation implements the principle of "whoever claims, who provides evidence", but in public pollution cases, ordinary people do not have professional evidence collection and testing capabilities. Article 1230 of the Civil Code has established the reversal of the burden of proof, while Article 1053 of this Code further solidifies the supporting reversal rule of no fault liability: the victim does not need to prove that the actor is at fault or that the pollution behavior is related to the damage, and all the burden of proof belongs to the actor; The perpetrator can only be exempted from liability if they provide evidence to prove that their behavior is not causally related to the damage or if there are legal grounds for exemption. The perpetrator must keep a complete record of the entire process of pollution monitoring, pollution control operation and maintenance, otherwise full responsibility will be directly presumed.
In response to the "risk of damage", Article 1079 of this Code establishes an ecological protection prohibition order, which is included in the legal liability chapter and constitutes a preemptive intervention measure. The applicable conditions are that the pollution behavior is being implemented or about to be implemented, and failure to stop it in a timely manner will result in significant risks that are difficult to remedy. The current wording of the article is relatively vague. In the future, supporting regulations are needed to refine risk assessment standards, clarify the authority of administrative agencies and courts, and specify the applicant. Administrative management agencies are suitable as priority applicants. At the same time, it should be clarified that the prohibition order is only an intermediate measure, and after it is issued, it must be followed up with final disposal such as filing, recovery, and ecological restoration.
Reporter: The Code clarifies the composite accountability mechanism of civil, administrative, and criminal, and divides the government into a dual level responsibility system. How to understand rigid constraint rules for different entities from the perspectives of industrial development and local investment promotion?
Sun Xianzhong: Ecological pollution behavior will simultaneously infringe upon the personal and property rights of civil subjects, administrative management order, and social public ecological interests. Therefore, the Code allows for the superposition of three types of responsibilities to be pursued. At the same time, this rule prohibits the practice of "using penalties for compensation and repairs". After paying fines and penalties, enterprises still need to prioritize compensating the losses of the masses and implementing ecological restoration.
The Code lists government responsibility as the core content of legal responsibility, divided into two levels of rights and responsibilities. The first layer is statutory management responsibility. Article 8 of the Code establishes a territorial responsibility system, and governments at all levels are fully responsible for the ecological environment quality in their jurisdiction. Industrial planning, investment attraction, pollution prevention and control, and green low-carbon development are all statutory responsibilities. Local governments should coordinate high-quality development and high-level protection, and cannot simply rely on lowering environmental protection thresholds to attract industrial projects. The second layer is the responsibility for disciplinary action for dereliction of duty. On the one hand, according to Article 1061, if local governments fail to perform their duties effectively and the ecological environment in their jurisdiction continues to deteriorate, they will impose administrative sanctions on the main responsible persons; On the other hand, according to Article 1076, if the procuratorial organs discover that the government or regulatory departments have illegally performed their duties or failed to act, they may initiate administrative public interest litigation, and the resulting ecological governance and restoration expenses shall be borne by local finance, which will constrain the extensive investment model from an institutional perspective.
Reporter: The Code stipulates multiple ways of assuming responsibility and sets up multiple accountability paths for administrative law enforcement, judicial litigation, and prosecutorial public interest litigation. How should enterprises, institutions, and other producers and operators distinguish and respond?
Sun Xianzhong: The Code establishes three types of core responsibility bearing methods, with different applicable scenarios. One is compensation for damages, which is used to compensate for the personal and property losses of the masses, in line with the punitive damages rules of the Civil Code, and to increase compensation for intentional pollution discharge and ecological destruction; The second is ecological environment restoration, which is a landmark way of environmental responsibility. Article 1065 of the Code requires the actor to prioritize the elimination of pollution and on-site restoration. If on-site restoration is not possible, alternative governance should be implemented, and financial compensation alone should not be used to replace ecological engineering; The third is administrative fines, which can be imposed on illegal pollution discharge behavior itself without actual damage, focusing on daily behavior deterrence. The three methods can be applied separately or in combination.
The legal liability system is the core lever for the implementation of the entire code. For market operators, rules such as no fault liability, reversed burden of proof, priority of civil compensation, ecological restoration obligations, and pre intervention of prohibition orders comprehensively increase the comprehensive economic cost of environmental violations. In the short term, it is necessary to improve environmental protection accounts, reserve environmental risk reserves, and optimize production and pollution control facilities; Long term reliance on green compliance to avoid huge compensation, administrative penalties, and judicial accountability risks, and enjoy the benefits of green credit and industrial support policies. For local governments, the dual layer territorial responsibility system forces the reconstruction of investment evaluation standards and the abandonment of extensive development paths. Only by accurately grasping the rigid rules of legal responsibilities in the code can various types of enterprises, institutions, and other producers and operators, regulatory and judicial organs rely on the rule of law system to coordinate high-level ecological protection and high-quality development, and use strict rule of law to support the construction of a beautiful China. (Economic Daily reporter Liu Jin)
