The Dilemma of NGOs in Vindicating Environmental Interests before the Courts: Normative and Empirical Observations from China

As one of the major legal developments of China's environmental law, public interest litigation (PIL) has achieved impressive progress in boosting public participation and enhancing environmental law enforcement during the past few years. As a result of the concerted efforts by Chinese policy-makers, China has developed a pluralistic legal framework for vindicating environmental interests. This regulatory design could provide a wide variety of enforcement choices, thus better protecting environmental interests. However, the danger is that there may be overlaps and even conflicts concerning the coordination between different actors and approaches. More particularly, there are inherent limits in the role of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that restrict the practical importance of their intervention in PIL. These limits have manifold reasons, including the lack of legitimacy of NGOs in China, the lack of financial independence, the restrictions on NGOs in challenging administrative authorities, and the ascendancy of administrative authorities in bringing ecological compensation suits. As a result, it is observed that NGOs are caught in a dilemma that, on the one hand, they are expected to play a pioneering role in the promotion of PIL and, on the other hand, they are facing formidable challenges to fully explore their potential in environmental protection.