Risk Society Theory and Plaintiff Standing in Environmental Civil Public Interest Litigation: Examination and Framework in the Context of China’s Codification

Abstract

The adoption of the Ecological and Environmental Code of the People’s Republic of China (March 2026) marks the arrival of the codification era. Building upon existing provisions in the Civil Procedure Law, the Code empowers procuratorial organs and qualified social organizations to initiate environmental civil public interest litigation against acts that harm the public ecological interests. Nevertheless, amid growing demands for preventive governance, room remains for systematic adjustment of the supporting rules governing plaintiff standing. From the perspective of risk-society theory, the preventive function of environmental law requires the scope of protected interest-in-litigation to be moderately extended from traditional actual harm to significant environmental risks. This expansion provokes reflections on the representative qualification within risk-sharing communities and the scope of actionable claims, and constitutes the internal driving force for optimising the plaintiff-standing system. Within China’s current normative system, several issues related to plaintiff standing still deserve attention. Rules on preventive public-interest litigation concerning significant risks are stipulated only in judicial interpretations and have not yet been confirmed by higher-rank legislation. Supplementary restrictions on procuratorial organs’ litigation status set out in judicial interpretations are inconsistent with provisions of the Code. Thresholds for social-organisation plaintiffs remain open to improvement. In addition, existing legislation excludes citizens from public-interest-litigation plaintiffs, leaving theoretical room for exploring limited plaintiff standing for citizens. Adopting normative analysis and case-study methods, this paper draws on risk-society theory, domestic legal norms and judicial practice to examine the legal logic and practical dilemmas of plaintiff standing in environmental civil public-interest litigation in the codification era. It develops differentiated institutional arrangements for three categories of litigants. The findings provide ideas for the implementation of supporting rules under the Code and offer theoretical references for institutional evolution oriented toward preventive governance demands in the future.

1. Introduction

The Ecological and Environmental Code of the People’s Republic of China will take effect on 15 August 2026. Article 1075 of the Code explicitly grants procuratorial organs and social organizations that meet statutory requirements the plaintiff standing to bring environmental civil public interest litigation, thereby providing a higher-ranking legal basis for the judicial protection of environmental public interests. However, the specific rules for determining plaintiff standing still require theoretical clarification and institutional refinement, particularly regarding how to address the characteristics of modern environmental risks. This paper will address these issues.

Environmental law requires an interdisciplinary approach, and risk society theory offers a powerful analytical framework for this purpose (de Araujo Júnior and de Faria 2020; Pinto 2021). Proposed by Ulrich Beck in 1986, this theory posits that modern society has shifted toward a new form centered on the production and distribution of risks. Cohen further integrated this theory with ecological modernization theory to explore governance models for modern risk societies (Cohen 1997; Hasan 2018). The logic of modern risk governance revealed by this theory has become an indispensable analytical tool in the study of environmental rule of law (C. Yang 2011; R. Fan 2018; Ma et al. 2025).

Modern environmental risks exhibit three key characteristics: scientific uncertainty, the diffuse and delayed nature of harm, and “organized irresponsibility” (Beck 2008; Cable 2017), posing a fundamental challenge to the traditional litigation system grounded in “actual harm” (J.-X. Yang 2011). From a risk society perspective, plaintiff standing has evolved from the traditional “relief for direct victims” to “judicial checks and balances on high-risk, scientifically uncertain, and preventive governance” (Bergkamp 2016).

The theoretical breakthrough in environmental civil public interest litigation enables interest in litigation to expand from “actual harm” to “significant environmental risk” (Yu 2025). Such an expansion of interest in litigation constitutes the inherent jurisprudential motivation for the moderate expansion and institutional improvement of plaintiff qualification rules. This implies that the traditional logic of “whoever is harmed may sue” no longer fully applies, necessitating further discussion on institutional arrangements for representing the risk community. Accordingly, the evaluation criteria for eligible plaintiffs should shift from a harm-attribution paradigm to a risk-community representativeness paradigm.

Existing research has demonstrated the legitimacy of expanding plaintiff standing, conducting systematic comparisons of the plaintiff standing of environmental NGOs, procuratorial organs, administrative agencies, individual citizens, and even future generations (Dai 2009; Zhang and Chen 2010; Zhai and Chang 2018). The research focus has gradually shifted from “whether to expand plaintiff standing” to “who is best suited to sue and how to prevent frivolous litigation”, forming a research framework supported by the theory of litigant interest, the theory of parties, and the theory of environmental public trust (Zhai and Chang 2018). However, existing research has not yet systematically addressed, in the context of codification, the profound impact of the uncertainty and potential harm characteristic of a risk society on the criteria for determining plaintiff standing. Nor has it fully resolved key issues such as how codification can integrate scattered rules, clarify the hierarchy of plaintiffs, and strengthen preventive functions.

Within the current legislative framework, several inter-related propositions concerning plaintiff standing remain to be explored: how the rules of preventive public-interest litigation for significant risks, currently established only by judicial interpretations, should address limitations stemming from their status as a legal source of lower rank and refine adjudicative criteria for identifying significant risks; how to reconcile the supplementary positioning of procuratorial organs under judicial interpretations with the institutional design of the Code; how the admissibility mechanism for social organizations can be further optimized from a risk-governance perspective; and whether individual citizens, as direct bearers of environmental risks, should be granted standing for public-interest litigation. Among these propositions, the exclusion of individual plaintiffs touches upon core premises of risk-society theory and requires further theoretical reflection to support future institutional development.

This paper will explore three questions: (1) What is the intrinsic logical connection between risk-society theory and the adjustment of rules governing plaintiff standing? (2) What specific conflicts exist in the current system regarding eligibility thresholds and the positioning of legal subjects? (3) Based on risk society theory, how should the plaintiff standing of different legal subjects be structured?

Accordingly, this paper employs risk society theory as an analytical framework and uses normative and case-based analysis. Drawing on China’s statutory provisions and judicial practice, it illustrates the theoretical necessity of expanding risk-based interest in litigation, sorts out normative conflicts between statutory provisions and judicial practice, and further examines the insights and limitations of judicial reasoning on significant risks for plaintiff qualification logic through Guiding Cases No. 173 and No. 257. The paper constructs a differentiated framework of plaintiff standing for multiple subjects. This analysis addresses two dimensions of plaintiff standing: it considers the scope of actionable conduct for subjects with existing statutory standing, and explores the theoretical possibility of limited plaintiff standing for individual citizens.

The structure of this paper is as follows: Section 2 elaborates on the intrinsic logical connection between risk society theory, the expansion of interest in litigation and the construction of plaintiff standing; Section 3 examines the institutional evolution and practical predicaments of plaintiff standing in China’s environmental civil public interest litigation; Section 4 proposes differentiated institutional solutions for three categories of plaintiffs; and Section 5 presents conclusions and research implications.

2. The Theory of the Risk Society and the Internal Logic of Environmental Civil Public Interest Litigation: A Perspective on Plaintiff Standing Methods

2.1. The Three Core Theses of Risk Society Theory

Risk society theory comprises three interrelated core theses that hold direct theoretical value for understanding the issue of plaintiff standing in environmental civil public interest litigation.

Proposition 1.

Scientific Uncertainty.

Modern environmental risks are characterized by complexity, uncertainty, and ambiguity, rendering them difficult to control through traditional regulatory procedures (Cable 2017). The causal chains of modern environmental risks are often extremely complex, involving uncertain factors such as long-term low-dose exposure, synergistic effects of multiple pollutants, and intergenerational accumulation; science itself struggles to provide definitive conclusions. This implies that if the law requires plaintiffs to produce definitive scientific evidence proving a causal relationship between harm and conduct, the vast majority of emerging environmental risks would be excluded from judicial remedies.

Proposition 2.

The Diffuse and Boundary-less Nature of Risk.

Unlike traditional harms, modern environmental risks transcend time and space, and their impacts are unconstrained by geographical or generational boundaries (Tait and Bruce 2003; Mason 2004). The victims are an unspecified multitude, including even future generations not yet born. Once a risk materializes into actual harm, it is often difficult to restore through ex post measures (Harris-Jones and Zhou 2005; Bourg 2020). This characteristic creates a structural conflict with the traditional plaintiff standing requirement that “harm must be attributable to a specific individual.”

Proposition 3.

“Organized Irresponsibility”.

Modern risks arise from the operational mechanisms of modern institutional systems, rather than from the unilateral fault of any single actor. However, when risks escalate into disasters, “organized irresponsibility” creates obstacles to identifying the truly responsible parties (Yang and Ji 2009). The attribution of responsibility becomes ambiguous, with various actors shifting blame onto one another, leading to the dilemma where “everyone is responsible, yet no one takes responsibility” (Giddens 1999; Mao 2012). This proposition reveals the fundamental obstacle to accountability in a risk society and highlights the potential role of public interest litigation in filling the accountability vacuum.

2.2. Expansion of Interest in Litigation and Theoretical Reflections on Qualified-Plaintiff Rules

The expansion of interest in litigation provides a necessary theoretical foundation for reflecting on plaintiff-standing rules, while concrete proposals for institutional adjustments will be developed in the following sections.

2.2.1. The Triple Conflict of the Traditional “Direct Interest” Logic

Traditional civil litigation requires that the plaintiff have a direct interest in the case, meaning the plaintiff must prove that they are the direct target of the infringement or have suffered concrete, specific harm (Posner and Landes 1994; Hough 2012). Environmental interests are a quintessential form of public interest; therefore, it is necessary to break free from the constraints of the “interest-relatedness” principle and reshape the standards for plaintiff standing (Deng 2009; Li 2010).

Article 119(1) of China’s Civil Procedure Law explicitly stipulates that “the plaintiff shall be a citizen, legal person, or other organization having a direct interest in the case”. Article 55 of the Civil Procedure Law and Article 1075 of the Ecological and Environmental Code have already broken through this traditional principle: statutory agencies and relevant organizations may now file lawsuits regarding acts that harm the public interest, without requiring the plaintiff to prove a direct interest in the case. However, these two laws still treat “actual harm” as a prerequisite for filing a lawsuit and do not address preventive litigation. Nevertheless, higher-ranked statutory texts still take actual harm as the prerequisite for filing litigation and do not incorporate rules for preventive public-interest litigation. Preventive public-interest litigation has long been grounded in judicial interpretations, and no unified statutory standard exists for identifying significant environmental risks. This normative landscape gives rise to persistent practical concerns: the expansion of interest in litigation derived from judicial interpretations lacks support from higher-ranked law; risk-assessment rules lack sufficient stability; and the expanded interest in litigation cannot be well aligned with the statutory legislative system governing plaintiff standing.

From the perspective of risk society theory, the traditional litigation logic centered on “actual harm” faces three structural conflicts. First, traditional logic requires that harm “has already occurred”, constituting ex post relief, whereas environmental risks often have long latency periods, making the timing of their manifestation and consequences highly uncertain; the risk society demands ex ante prevention (Zhou 2025). Second, traditional logic requires that harm be attributable to a “specific” plaintiff, whereas environmental risks are inherently diffuse, making it extremely difficult to decompose collective risks into individual harms. Third, traditional logic requires a “certain and direct” causal relationship, whereas many environmental risks in a risk society are precisely shrouded in scientific uncertainty, and traditional legal assessments and analyses of causation often fail to fully reflect existing scientific evidence (Otto et al. 2023).

2.2.2. The Theoretical Value of Expanding the Interest in Litigation for Qualified Plaintiffs

First, under the traditional model, plaintiff standing can be established by proving “personal harm”. However, under the “significant risk” model, the risk has not yet materialized into actual harm. Therefore, plaintiff standing cannot be proven through “personal harm”. It must instead shift to a “representative” standard. Whoever can represent the “risk community” in asserting preventive interests should be granted plaintiff standing.

Second, this shift requires that the assessment of plaintiff standing move from “attribution of harm” to “representation of the risk community”. The public nature of risk dictates that plaintiff standing must shift from “individual interest” to representation of the public interest.

Third, the scope of qualified plaintiffs must be redefined. Environmental organizations are well-suited to assume the role of “representatives of the risk community”. The logic behind the plaintiff standing of procuratorial organs lies in their statutory duty to represent the public interest. The possibility of granting individuals limited plaintiff standing under specific circumstances also merits theoretical exploration.

The expansion of risk-oriented interest in litigation stems from the structural transformation of environmental risks revealed by risk-society theory. Nevertheless, purely sociological theoretical deduction alone cannot justify institutional adjustments within China’s legal system. The litigation logic built upon the representation of risk-sharing communities in response to environmental risks requires further examination within China’s existing normative framework. China’s environmental legal system has long adhered to preventive governance. Article 6 of the Ecological and Environmental Code establishes the basic principle of “prevention-oriented governance”, and Article 1079 creates the ecological-environmental injunction system. It provides that parties may apply to the people’s court for injunctive preservation measures in the face of significant risks, offering procedural remedies to avert imminent environmental harm. This signals the paradigm shift in ecological-environmental rule-of-law from harm-redress to risk-prevention (Qin 2026), demonstrating that China’s legal system already possesses an institutional foundation for risk prevention. Preventive public interest litigation targeting significant environmental risks has also emerged in judicial practice. Such risk-prevention instruments, however, serve only as interim procedural safeguards in litigation. They merely address the need to halt urgent risks and have not brought about corresponding adjustments to plaintiff-standing rules following the expansion of interest in litigation. The representation logic of the environmental-risk community has been elaborated in the preceding sections, yet existing statutory rules have not adapted to such logical shifts. Accordingly, it is necessary to sort out and optimise the rules governing plaintiff standing.

2.3. Functional Reconstruction of the Plaintiff Standing System in a Risk Society

Based on the above analysis, the plaintiff standing system for environmental civil public interest litigation in the context of a risk society should fulfill three core functions.

First, the representative function of the risk community. Victims of environmental risks are unspecified and widespread, extending even to future generations not yet born, creating an urgent need for qualified entities to represent the risk community in exercising the right to sue. This function requires that plaintiff standing be granted primarily to environmental NGOs that possess organizational and professional capabilities.

Second, the early risk warning function. As direct bearers of environmental risks, individuals are typically the first to perceive changes in risk and can serve as early warning agents. Under traditional environmental risk decision-making models, experts and technocrats who possess scientific knowledge monopolize decision-making power, while the general public is excluded from the process (J. Yang 2022). Risk society theory reveals that modern risk perception relies not only on expert knowledge but also incorporates lay knowledge. Experts and the public should be regarded as equal knowledge agents, with expert knowledge and local knowledge complementing, dialoguing with, and integrating into one another in risk governance (Wynne 1996). This function requires that the plaintiff standing regime duly incorporate laypersons’ risk perceptions, rather than depending exclusively on expert assessment or awaiting the occurrence of actual harm.

Third, the liability attribution function. “Organized irresponsibility” must be countered with “organized accountability”. The plaintiff standing system should identify the entity most likely and capable of holding risk creators accountable and grant it the corresponding plaintiff standing to sue.

In summary, risk society theory does not seek to completely abandon the concept of “interest”. Rather, it calls for a fundamental reconfiguration of its meaning—shifting from the “individual attribution of actual harm” to the “community representation of significant risks”. This reconfiguration forms the theoretical foundation for the subsequent examination of China’s institutional practices and the construction of differentiated plaintiff standing criteria in this paper.

3. The Evolution of Plaintiff Standing in China’s Environmental Civil Public Interest Litigation and Its Practical Challenges

3.1. The Evolutionary Trajectory of Plaintiff Standing in China’s Environmental Civil Public Interest Litigation

The rules governing plaintiff standing in China’s environmental civil public interest litigation have evolved from the general authorization provided by the Civil Procedure Law, through the Environmental Protection Law’s specification of conditions for social organizations, to judicial interpretations expanding the scope of “significant risks” and the prosecution rules for procuratorial organs, and finally culminating in the consolidation of these provisions in the Ecological and Environmental Code. This evolution has not been a linear progression but has instead exhibited a complex pattern of both expansion and restriction at different stages.

3.1.1. The General Authorization Under Article 55 of the Civil Procedure Law

The 2012 amendment to the Civil Procedure Law added Article 55, which stipulates that “with regard to acts that harm the public interest, such as environmental pollution or infringement of the lawful rights and interests of numerous consumers, organs and relevant organizations prescribed by law may file a lawsuit with the people’s courts”. This marked the first principled authorization for environmental civil public interest litigation at the level of Chinese law. The core characteristics of this provision are as follows. First, it adopts the legislative technique of authorization, meaning that only organs and organizations explicitly authorized by “law” may obtain plaintiff standing. Second, it defines the scope of litigation as “acts that harm the public interest”, using the term “harm” rather than “risk” reflecting a traditional litigation mindset centered on actual harm. The provision does not explicitly specify which agencies are included in the phrase “agencies prescribed by law” nor does it set specific conditions for “relevant organizations”. This legislative ambiguity provides room for subsequent institutional development but also sows the seeds of uncertainty.

3.1.2. Specification of Qualification Criteria for Social Organizations in Article 58 of the Environmental Protection Law

Article 58 of the Environmental Protection Law, as revised in 2014, established specific provisions regarding the plaintiff standing of environmental protection organizations for the first time: social organizations that are legally registered with the civil affairs department of a municipal-level or higher people’s government, have been exclusively engaged in environmental protection public interest activities for at least five consecutive years, and have no record of violations, have the right to initiate environmental civil public interest litigation. This provision specifies that the “relevant organizations” referred to in Article 55 of the Civil Procedure Law are qualified environmental protection organizations, thereby addressing the practical question of “who can sue”. However, the eligibility thresholds set forth in this provision are excessively high (Sun and Zhang 2020). Due to the three requirements of registration level, years of operation, and compliance record, a large number of small and medium-sized environmental protection organizations are excluded from plaintiff standing to sue.

3.1.3. Expansion of the Scope of Litigation to Cover “Significant Risk” in Judicial Interpretations

Article 1 of the Interpretation of the Supreme People’s Court on Several Issues Concerning the Application of Law in the Trial of Environmental Civil Public Interest Litigation ([2015] No. 1, first amended in 2020, second amended July 2026), which came into effect in 2015, explicitly stipulates that the people’s courts shall accept cases involving acts that have already harmed the public interest or pose a significant risk of harming the public interest. This constitutes an expansion of “Interest in Litigation” at the judicial level. The inclusion of “significant risk” as a basis for filing a lawsuit means, for the first time, that plaintiffs need not wait for actual harm to occur before initiating litigation; the interests protected are no longer limited to harm to specific individuals but extend to the exposure of unspecified groups to risk. It is particularly noteworthy that this expansion occurs solely at the level of judicial interpretation; the original texts of the Civil Procedure Law and the Environmental Protection Law do not contain such provisions. Furthermore, this judicial interpretation has refined procedural rules regarding specific review standards for the eligibility of social organizations, the allocation of the burden of proof, and the adoption of expert opinions, becoming the primary direct basis for courts in adjudicating environmental civil public interest litigation cases in practice.

3.1.4. The “Subsidiary” Role of Procuratorial Organs Under Judicial Interpretations

Article 13 of the Interpretation of the Supreme People’s Court and the Supreme People’s Procuratorate on Several Issues Concerning the Application of Law in Cases of Public Interest Litigation by Procuratorial Organs ([2018] No. 6) positions procuratorial organs as “subsidiary” plaintiffs. This provision stipulates that where a people’s procuratorate, in the course of performing its duties, discovers acts that damage social public interests—such as the destruction of the ecological environment and resources—and intends to initiate public interest litigation, it shall issue a public notice in accordance with the law, with the notice period being thirty days. Upon the expiration of the public notice period, if the organs and relevant organizations prescribed by law do not file a lawsuit, the people’s procuratorate may file a lawsuit with the people’s court. In practice, this “subsidiary” positioning creates a clear discrepancy with the “leading force” role actually played by procuratorial organs. In the practice of environmental civil public interest litigation in China, procuratorial organs have become the primary litigants. According to the White Paper on Public Interest Litigation Prosecution Work (Supreme People’s Procuratorate 2026) issued by the Supreme People’s Procuratorate, in 2025, procuratorial organs nationwide handled over 47,000 public interest litigation cases in the field of ecological environment and resource protection and filed 6114 civil public interest lawsuits (Supreme People’s Procuratorate 2026). The Report on the Development of Environmental Justice in China (Supreme People’s Court 2025) issued by the Supreme People’s Court also noted that the landscape of plaintiffs in environmental civil public interest litigation is characterized by “procuratorial organs taking the lead” (Supreme People’s Court 2025). In contrast, no systematic statistical data are available regarding environmental civil public interest litigation cases initiated by environmental protection organizations. This contrast reveals a noteworthy phenomenon: although the law grants environmental protection organizations plaintiff standing to sue, in practice, they have not become the main force in public interest litigation, and the number of environmental civil public interest litigation cases initiated by procuratorial organs far exceeds those initiated by environmental protection organizations.

3.1.5. The Substantive Legal Basis of Articles 1234 and 1235 of the Civil Code

Articles 1234 and 1235 of the Civil Code, adopted in 2020, clarify the liability for restoration and the scope of compensation for ecological and environmental damage. Article 1234 provides: “Where ecological and environmental damage is caused by a violation of state regulations, and the ecological environment is capable of restoration, the organs designated by the state or organizations prescribed by law have the right to request the tortfeasor to assume restoration liability within a reasonable period”. Article 1235 specifies the scope of compensation for losses, including losses resulting from the loss of service functions during the period from the occurrence of ecological and environmental damage until restoration is completed, as well as losses caused by permanent damage. These two articles provide the substantive legal basis for environmental civil public interest litigation and, together with the procedural authorization under Article 55 of the Civil Procedure Law, form the institutional foundation for public interest litigation. It is worth noting that these two articles also use the term “damage” rather than “significant risk” and limit the plaintiffs to “state-designated organs or organizations prescribed by law”, thereby continuing the legislative technique of principled authorization.

3.1.6. General Authorization Under Article 1075 of the Ecological and Environmental Code

Article 1075 of the Ecological and Environmental Code stipulates: “Procuratorial organs and social organizations that meet the statutory conditions have the right to initiate civil public interest litigation against acts that pollute the environment, destroy ecosystems, and harm the public interest”. This marks the first time China has explicitly designated procuratorial organs as plaintiffs at the statutory level, thereby ending the previous situation in which their standing as plaintiffs was established solely through judicial interpretations. Article 1075 of the Code places procuratorial organs and social organizations on an equal footing without establishing a “subsidiary” priority condition, which is inconsistent with the “subsidiary” positioning set forth in Article 13 of Judicial Interpretation ([2018] No. 6). The Code provides only a general authorization; specific conditions regarding “social organizations meeting statutory requirements” and the priority of prosecution between procuratorial organs and social organizations, among other supporting rules, await further elaboration in future judicial interpretations.

In addition, other plaintiffs exist in the realm of special laws. For example, Article 114(2) of the Marine Environmental Protection Law of the People’s Republic of China (revised in 2023) authorizes departments exercising marine environmental supervision and management authority to initiate litigation for compensation for damage to marine natural resources and the ecological environment. Meanwhile, the Plan for Reforming the Ecological and Environmental Damage Compensation System and the Provisions of the Supreme People’s Court on Several Issues Concerning the Trial of Ecological and Environmental Damage Compensation Cases (Trial Implementation) (2019) authorize provincial and municipal-level people’s governments to initiate ecological and environmental damage compensation litigation. The aforementioned systems constitute a parallel remedial framework alongside the environmental civil public interest litigation discussed in this paper, and their rules regarding plaintiff standing differ; this paper will not elaborate on them further.

3.2. Institutional Changes and Challenges Before and After Codification

3.2.1. Significant Risks: Expansion via Judicial Interpretations and Lack of Explicit Provisions in the Code

Article 1 of the Interpretation of the Supreme People’s Court on Several Issues Concerning the Application of Law in the Trial of Environmental Civil Public Interest Litigation explicitly includes “acts posing a significant risk of harming the public interest” within the scope of litigation, reflecting an expansion of the interest in litigation from “actual harm” to “significant risk”. However, Article 1075 of the Ecological and Environmental Code merely stipulates “acts that harm the public interest”, continuing the traditional wording of the Civil Procedure Law, the Environmental Protection Law, and the Civil Code, without directly incorporating the phrase “significant risk”.

This implies that the concept of “significant risk” which underpins the expansion of the interest in litigation, has not yet been explicitly affirmed at the level of the Code. During the legislative process of the Code, the third draft of the bill temporarily removed the phrase “a significant risk of suffering harm”, prompting concern and recommendations from environmental organizations. The Code did not entirely eliminate all provisions regarding preventive remedies. For instance, Article 1079 of the Code establishes the system of ecological and environmental injunctions, allowing parties to apply to the people’s court for injunctive relief before or during litigation. Applications for injunctions are premised on the existence of a “real and imminent significant risk”. However, under Articles 103 and 104 of the current Civil Procedure Law, the parties eligible to apply for injunctions are limited to “interested parties”. Social organizations are not “interested parties” in the traditional sense in environmental civil public interest litigation; therefore, it is difficult for them to apply for injunctions under these provisions (Friends of Nature 2026). This institutional design further restricts the channels for preventive relief available to social organizations. At the same time, the concept of “significant risk”—a core element in judicial practice—remains vague in terms of its definition and assessment criteria (Zhang and Wu 2020). What constitutes “significant”? What constitutes “risk”? To what extent must the likelihood of the risk materializing be established? What threshold must the severity of harm meet? Such questions rely on scientific assessments of potential harm and urgently require clear rules to enhance the accuracy of judicial determinations (Liang 2023).

This interpretation was further revised in July 2026 as part of the judicial-document cleanup exercise to align with the newly adopted Ecological and Environmental Code of the People’s Republic of China. Nevertheless, it has not resolved the long-standing normative tension: the ground for litigation based on “significant risk” still stems from judicial-interpretive rules and lacks confirmation in higher-ranked statutory law. Against this backdrop, the institutional stability of risk-oriented preventive public-interest litigation remains dependent on the interpretive positions of judicial authorities.

Against this backdrop, the institutional stability of risk-oriented preventive public-interest litigation remains dependent on the interpretive positions of judicial authorities, and this normative tension exerts practical implications for the optimisation of the overall plaintiff-standing system explored in subsequent sections.

3.2.2. Procuratorial Organs: The Transition from a “Supplementary” Role to an Independent Plaintiff

Prior to the implementation of the Code, the right of procuratorial organs to bring environmental civil public interest actions was clearly “supplementary” in nature, as stipulated in Article 13 of Judicial Interpretation ([2018] No. 6). Following the implementation of the Code, the role of procuratorial organs has undergone a fundamental shift. Article 1075 of the Code jointly designates procuratorial organs and social organizations as plaintiffs, without imposing any “supplementary” preconditions. The General Provisions of the Code stipulate for the first time that “People’s Procuratorates shall strengthen ecological and environmental prosecution work and reinforce prosecutorial supervision”. This marks the first legislative clarification of the concept of “ecological and environmental prosecution” and the first formal inclusion of “reinforcing prosecutorial supervision” in law.

This conflict of rules manifests in three aspects. First, the articulation of the rules is ambiguous. There is currently no clear answer as to whether the “supplementary” priority rule established by judicial interpretations will continue to apply after the Code takes effect, or whether the Code’s provision designating both procuratorial organs and social organizations as joint prosecuting entities implies that procuratorial organs are no longer subject to such priority restrictions. Second, there is a conflict in the positioning of the subjects. The Code does not impose any “supplementary” preconditions on procuratorial organs, but the relevant provisions of the judicial interpretation remain legally valid until explicitly repealed; the coexistence of these two sets of rules may lead to confusion in the application of law in practice. Third, a coordination mechanism between procuratorial organs and administrative authorities needs to be established. While the General Provisions of the Code call for “strengthening prosecutorial supervision”, a coordination mechanism between procuratorial organs and the competent ecological and environmental authorities still requires institutional design. Judging from the legislative trends of the Code, procuratorial organs have been assigned a more proactive role, which suggests that future supporting judicial interpretations may adjust the priority rules for procuratorial prosecution or even remove the “supplementary” restriction.

3.2.3. Social Organizations: Continuation and Suspension of Qualification Thresholds

Article 58 of the Environmental Protection Law sets forth specific conditions for social organizations, constituting a “hard threshold” for such organizations to initiate environmental civil public interest litigation. In practice, a large number of small and medium-sized environmental organizations have been excluded from plaintiff standing because they cannot meet these conditions. Furthermore, the financial difficulties faced by social organizations in environmental civil public interest litigation are evident, which further limits their capacity to file lawsuits.

The newly adopted Ecological and Environmental Code reconstructs the normative system for social organizations’ plaintiff standing through two core provisions. Article 147 of the Code substantially inherits the threshold criteria of former Article 58 of the Environmental Protection Law and fully preserves hard conditions such as registration level and absence of illegal records. By contrast, Article 1075 of the Code only grants a generalized authorization for public-interest litigation without specifying detailed qualification requirements. Upon the formal implementation of the Code, the Environmental Protection Law shall be repealed in its entirety. Former Article 58 shall cease to apply, and Article 147 shall serve as the statutory basis for the plaintiff qualifications of environmental social organizations.

The supporting judicial interpretation governing environmental public-interest litigation underwent its second amendment in July 2026. This amendment has not substantively relaxed the filing thresholds for social organizations. In practice, grassroots environmental organizations still have very limited room for participation, which constrains the full realization of the preventive function of environmental public-interest litigation.

3.2.4. Individuals: Completely Excluded from Plaintiff Standing

Neither the Civil Procedure Law, the Environmental Protection Law, the Civil Code, nor the Ecological and Environmental Code grants individual citizens plaintiff standing to file environmental civil public interest lawsuits. This means that even though individuals are the most direct and widespread bearers of environmental risks, they cannot file environmental public interest civil lawsuits in their personal capacity. Experts, lawyers with relevant legal knowledge, and environmental practitioners with extensive practical experience are also cut off from the channels for initiating such lawsuits (L. Guo 2024). From the perspective of risk society theory, this institutional design has the following flaws.

First, the risk identification and early warning functions of individuals cannot be fully utilized. Science is responsible for “identifying risks”, while the public is responsible for “perceiving risks” (Beck 1993). Given the inherent limitations of expert knowledge, the practical value of lay knowledge, and the need for political legitimacy, lay knowledge should play an active role in the formulation of technical and environmental policies (Lopez Cerezo and Gonzalez Garcia 1996). As the most sensitive members of the risk community, individuals are often the first to perceive abnormal changes in environmental risks; completely excluding them from plaintiff standing may delay the optimal timing for risk warnings.

Second, risk society theory emphasizes “organized irresponsibility”, and individuals are precisely one of the groups that perceive risks earliest; granting individuals limited plaintiff standing can serve as an effective check on institutional shirking of responsibility. China’s practice of completely excluding individuals fails to fully accommodate the preventive demands of risk society theory.

This critique finds further support from the cultural theory of risk (Douglas and Wildavsky 1982), which holds that risk perception is not purely based on scientific evidence and calculation but a product of social and cultural construction, with different social structures shaping members’ divergent risk perceptions. Individual citizens, as the most immediate bearers of environmental risks in daily life, hold a unique capacity to perceive risks. Excluding them from standing not only disregards this distinctive risk perspective but also fails to acknowledge their legitimate interest in voicing environmental concerns through judicial channels.

3.3. Practical Dilemmas: A Comparative Analysis of Two Guiding Cases

The two guiding cases issued by the Supreme People’s Court provide important analytical examples for understanding the practical dilemmas in determining “significant risks”. Both cases involve the potential impact of hydropower plant construction on the habitats of rare species, yet they exhibit significant differences in their judicial outcomes.

3.3.1. Guiding Case No. 173

Guiding Case No. 173, issued in 2021—specifically, the civil public interest litigation case regarding ecological and environmental protection brought by the Friends of Nature Research Institute of Chaoyang District, Beijing, against China Hydroelectric Engineering Consulting Group Xinping Development Co., Ltd. and others—was the nation’s first preventive civil public interest litigation case concerning the protection of rare wild flora and fauna. It was selected by the United Nations Environment Programme as the top case among the world’s ten most representative and influential biodiversity conservation cases (Supreme People’s Court of China 2021).

The basic facts of the case are as follows. The area to be flooded by the reservoir of the Jiasha River Grade I Hydropower Station, developed and constructed by the defendants, encompasses a suitable habitat for the green peafowl. In 2017, the plaintiff, Friends of Nature, filed an environmental public interest lawsuit on the grounds that once the reservoir of the hydropower station began impounding water, it would submerge the habitat of the green peafowl—a National Class I protected animal—and the habitat of Cycas chenii—a National Class I protected plant, potentially leading to the extinction of the green peafowl. The plaintiff requested that the People’s Court order the defendant to eliminate the risk of harm posed by the construction of the hydropower station to rare and endangered wild flora and fauna, including the green peafowl and Cycas chenii, as well as to tropical monsoon forests and tropical rainforests; to immediately halt construction of the hydropower station; to refrain from impounding water; and to refrain from cutting down vegetation within the reservoir area.

After deliberation, the court found that the plaintiff had provided evidence demonstrating that the inundation zone of the hydropower station was an area where green peafowls frequently roamed, constituting their biological habitat. Once submerged, this would likely cause serious harm to the survival of the green peafowl. Furthermore, the original environmental impact report did not address the protection of Cycas chenii, and continued construction of the hydropower station would pose a significant risk to the survival of rare flora and fauna in the area. Accordingly, the court determined that the defendant’s actions posed a “significant risk of harm to the public interest” and ordered the defendant to cease construction.

The judicial principle established by this case is that, in determining the existence of a “significant risk”, a comprehensive assessment must be made based on the unique value of the protected subject, the likelihood of harm occurring, and the severity and irreversibility of the consequences. Where the plaintiff provides evidence demonstrating that the project will cause devastating and irreversible harm to the habitats and ecosystems of endangered wildlife, it shall be deemed to pose a “significant risk of harming the public interest”.

3.3.2. Guiding Case No. 257

Guiding Case No. 257, issued in 2025—specifically, the civil public interest litigation case involving ecological damage brought by a certain environmental research institute in Changping District, Beijing, against a certain river basin hydropower development company—concerns the protection of the habitat of the Sichuan taimen (Hucho bleekeri), a National Class I protected wild animal (Supreme People’s Court of China 2025).

The basic facts of the case are as follows. The hydropower station in question was developed and constructed by the defendant with a total investment of approximately 8.15 billion RMB. The river section under development serves as the habitat of the Sichuan taimen, a species endemic to China. The Sichuan taimen is a rare and endangered fish species in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River and is listed as a Class I protected wildlife species. The plaintiff argued that the defendant’s construction of the hydropower station would affect the survival of the Sichuan taimen, destroy the habitat of this critically endangered species, and harm biodiversity. Consequently, the plaintiff filed a civil public interest lawsuit in 2021, seeking a court order requiring the defendant to cease construction, compensate for losses, relocate the project site, and issue a public apology.

After deliberation, the court found that the defendant had conducted an environmental impact assessment in accordance with the law, and the former Ministry of Environmental Protection had issued an approval for the assessment, granting in-principle consent while requiring strict implementation of all environmental protection measures. In accordance with the requirements of the environmental impact assessment report and the approval, the defendant carried out work related to habitat protection, artificial breeding and release, and fish passage facilities. The court ultimately determined that the defendant’s actions did not pose a “significant risk of harming the public interest” and dismissed the plaintiff’s claims; the appellate court upheld the original judgment.

The judicial principle established by this case is that where a construction project has undergone an environmental impact assessment in accordance with the law, and the construction entity has implemented targeted protective measures to prevent or mitigate adverse impacts on the ecological environment to the greatest extent possible, it shall be deemed not to pose a significant risk of harming the public interest (Su et al. 2022).

3.3.3. Comparison of the Two Cases, Judicial Dilemmas and Institutional Implications

The two cases share striking similarities. Both concern potential impacts of hydropower station construction on habitats of national first-class protected animals, namely the green peafowl and the Sichuan taimen respectively. The claimants are environmental organizations in both lawsuits, and the core dispute revolves around the interpretation and application of “significant risks”, yet the judgments diverge sharply. Guiding Case No. 173 affirmed the existence of significant risks and ordered construction to halt, while Guiding Case No. 257 found no significant risks and dismissed the claims.

This comparison reveals a fundamental judicial dilemma: the identification of “significant risks” relies heavily on case-by-case discretion, without unified and stable normative criteria. Construction projects in both cases underwent legally required environmental impact assessments (EIAs), but courts adopted markedly different standards for judging significant risks. In Guiding Case No. 173, the court held that the EIA failed to adequately assess impacts on Cycas chenii, so significant environmental risks could not be ruled out. In Guiding Case No. 257, the court found the EIA procedure compliant and that the developer had implemented protective measures sufficient to mitigate potential ecological risks. Importantly, the plaintiff standing of environmental organizations remained undisputed in both cases, and litigation disagreements centered solely on the substantive element of whether significant risks existed. As assessments of significant risks depend largely on individual case judgment, environmental organizations with identical statutory standing may receive vastly different outcomes in analogous cases. This demonstrates that even where a party holds valid plaintiff standing, the success of its claims hinges substantially on clear criteria for identifying significant risks. Clarifying such standards is essential for standardizing substantive adjudication and constitutes an important prerequisite for refining the institutional framework governing plaintiff standing.

It is evident that China’s courts have expanded the scope of interest in litigation through judicial interpretations, enabling the judicial application of preventive environmental public interest litigation. Nevertheless, such practice operates exclusively within the existing statutory framework of eligible plaintiffs defined by Chinese legislation. It cannot resolve how the overall plaintiff-standing system should be holistically coordinated amid the expanded scope of interest in litigation. From the perspective of risk society theory, the expansion of interest in litigation and adjustments to plaintiff standing possess a theoretically coordinated logic. An objective analysis of China’s current legal system can be conducted along two dimensions.

First, from a practical operational perspective, the rules on significant risks underpinning preventive litigation rest largely upon judicial interpretations. Neither the Ecological and Environmental Code nor the Civil Procedure Law has formally confirmed such rules at the level of higher-level statutes. The low normative rank deprives preventive remedy rules of stable statutory foundations.

Second, from the perspective of institutional legislative design, current law explicitly confers public interest litigation standing on procuratorial organs and social organizations, while excluding individual citizens as litigants based on present governance demands. This institutional arrangement represents a normative choice suited to China’s current environmental governance landscape. Meanwhile, the characteristics of modern environmental risks and preventive governance logic uncovered by risk society theory offer an analytical perspective for systematic institutional adjustments in the future.

4. Differentiated Construction of Plaintiff Standing Based on Risk Society Theory

The design of plaintiff standing in environmental civil public interest litigation requires striking a balance between openness and restrictiveness. From the perspective of risk society theory, the core of this balance lies in the following: the plaintiff standing system should be capable of responding to the preventive demands of a risk society, representing the risk community, and breaking the cycle of “organized irresponsibility”. China’s institutional improvements should, within the framework of risk society theory and in light of the institutional dilemmas arising from codification, explore a differentiated structure of legal subjects that aligns with its own legal traditions.

4.1. Criteria for Determining “Significant Risk”: The Theoretical Premise for Expanding the Interest in Litigation

Risk society theory requires that the interest in litigation be expanded from “actual harm” to “significant risk”; this expansion serves as the logical starting point for the reconfiguration of plaintiff standing. However, “significant risk” itself is not a matter of plaintiff standing. Recognizing that a “significant risk” can serve as a basis for litigation only addresses whether preventive claims are sustainable. Once preventive interest in litigation is integrated into the legal system, the question of which actors are entitled to represent the risk community arises. This constitutes an issue that the institutional framework of plaintiff standing must resolve. Therefore, clarifying the criteria for identifying “significant risk” is also an essential prerequisite for improving the regime governing plaintiff standing.

Based on the three core propositions of risk society theory, and drawing on practical experience from judicial interpretations and guiding cases, this paper proposes four factors to consider in determining “significant risk”.

Factor One: The Severity and Irreversibility of Harmful Consequences. Risk society theory emphasizes the diffuse and delayed nature of harm, requiring attention to the potential consequences of risk. In determining whether a “significant risk” exists, one must assess whether, once the risk materializes into actual harm, its severity meets the “significant” threshold—that is, whether it involves irreversible or difficult-to-recover consequences such as species extinction, ecosystem collapse, or public health crises (Shen 2021). In Guiding Case No. 173, the court determined the existence of a significant risk precisely on the ground that the project “would cause devastating and irreversible damage to the habitats and ecosystems of endangered wildlife”.

Factor Two: Probability of Risk Occurrence and Scientific Basis. Risk society theory emphasizes scientific uncertainty, meaning that plaintiffs cannot be required to provide definitive proof. The determination of “significant risk” does not require meeting a high probability standard; rather, a “reasonable basis” standard applies. That is, the foundational scientific evidence, expert opinions, or model predictions provided by the plaintiff must reasonably support the likelihood of the risk occurring. Some studies suggest that quantitative uncertainty analysis and causal inference methods should be incorporated into legislation to enhance the scientific rigor and practicality of preventive measures (Ricci et al. 2003). At the same time, defendants should be permitted to present counterevidence, but the burden of proof should rest with the defendant.

Factor Three: The Scope of Risk Impact and the Specificity of the Protected Object. The diffuse nature of risk necessitates attention to the scope of its impact. The broader the scope of impact, the greater the number of unspecified individuals involved, and the higher the ecological or public health value of the protected object, the more likely it is to be deemed a “significant risk”. In Guiding Case No. 173, the “unique value” of the protected object was precisely a key factor considered by the court.

Factor Four: The Adequacy and Effectiveness of Preventive Measures. The adjudicative principles in Guiding Case No. 257 indicate that whether the defendant has taken adequate preventive measures serves as a countervailing factor in determining the existence of a “significant risk”. If the defendant has conducted an environmental impact assessment in accordance with the law and implemented targeted protective measures sufficient to reduce the risk to an acceptable level, a significant risk should not be deemed to exist. This factor embodies the dimension of “risk acceptability” in risk society theory, meaning that not all risks require judicial intervention; only risks exceeding the acceptable threshold constitute a “significant risk”.

Among the four factors mentioned above, Factors One through Three are affirmative determinants, while Factor Four is a negative exclusionary factor. The comprehensive assessment of these four factors aims to provide courts with practical guidelines for determination, reduce disparities in case-by-case discretion, and thereby establish a uniform substantive standard for determining plaintiff standing.

4.2. The Structure of Plaintiff Standing for Environmental Organizations

The core dilemma revealed by risk society theory is “organized irresponsibility”. Environmental risks in modern society are often jointly caused by institutional systems such as corporations, governments, and experts. Yet when these risks escalate into disasters, the various actors shift blame onto one another, resulting in a situation where everyone is responsible but no one takes accountability. The core function of environmental organizations is precisely to serve as an organized force capable of breaking this impasse. They consolidate dispersed individuals exposed to risk into an action-oriented risk community, transforming individual and localized risk perceptions into an institutionalized, sustained oversight force. The legitimacy of environmental organizations’ plaintiff standing lies not in their members having suffered actual harm, but rather in the “functional connection” between their charter objectives and the objects they seek to protect (Ye 2019)—a manifestation of the “representative” logic.

Most scholars, drawing on the perspective of institutional advantages, argue that environmental organizations are the optimal plaintiffs in environmental civil public interest litigation (Cao and Wang 2011; Z. Fan 2014), as they possess professional expertise, neutrality, and a public interest orientation. However, some studies have pointed out that, within the existing institutional framework, environmental organizations face constraints related to registration levels, years of operation, funding, and independence, resulting in a dilemma where their plaintiff standing to sue is both strengthened and weakened (Zhang 2015). Based on this, two distinct institutional orientations have emerged in the academic community. One view advocates strengthening the plaintiff standing of environmental NGOs, clarifying their priority to file lawsuits, and appropriately restricting or curtailing the plaintiff standing of administrative agencies and procuratorial organs (Gao and Whittaker 2019). The other perspective is more cautious, focusing on the risks to public mandate and accountability that may arise from lawsuits filed by social organizations, and emphasizing the need to guard against frivolous litigation and the misallocation of judicial resources (Bergkamp 2001).

From a functionalist perspective, environmental organizations should fulfill three functions in a risk society. First, the representative function of the risk community, that is, representing unspecified groups exposed to environmental risks, including future generations. Second, the risk identification function, which involves identifying and highlighting emerging risks under conditions of scientific uncertainty through their professional expertise and membership networks. Third, the accountability function, which involves transforming “organized irresponsibility” into “organized accountability” through litigation mechanisms. Based on these functional roles, environmental organizations should be granted the broadest possible plaintiff standing to sue. Accordingly, this paper proposes criteria for determining the plaintiff standing of environmental organizations, comprising the following three elements.

First, statutory thresholds. Environmental organizations must meet basic requirements regarding legality and stability, including being legally registered, having bylaws that explicitly include environmental protection as their purpose, and possessing a fixed organizational structure and operational premises. The existing admission rules should be optimized by appropriately relaxing the rigid thresholds on registration level and years of operation, so as to broaden access to plaintiff standing for small and medium-sized environmental organizations.

Second, functional relevance. Lawsuits filed by environmental organizations must have a substantive connection to their statutory objectives and actual areas of activity (X. Guo 2015). The court should examine whether the organization has long been engaged in conservation activities related to the environmental risks at issue in the case, and whether its expertise and technical capabilities are sufficient to represent the risk community in asserting preventive interests.

Third, the significance of the risk. On the basis of satisfying the first two requirements, courts should also examine the significance of the environmental risk at issue in specific cases, including whether the potential harm caused by the risk is severe, whether the likelihood of the risk occurring reaches a reasonable level, and whether the scope of the affected population is broad. This requirement aims to ensure that only environmental risks of genuine significance can enter judicial proceedings, thereby preventing public interest litigation from being abused for minor or hypothetical risks.

The three requirements outlined above are designed to lower procedural thresholds while preventing frivolous litigation through substantive review. Regarding supporting mechanisms, it is recommended to establish a funding support system for environmental organizations (Z. Fan 2014; Zhai and Chang 2018). This could be achieved through government procurement of services or public interest litigation funds to alleviate the financial burden on small and medium-sized organizations, thereby incentivizing disadvantaged plaintiffs (Zhai and Chang 2018).

4.3. The Structure of Plaintiff Standing for Procuratorial Organs

Risk society theory reveals a paradox: in modern society, risks are often generated by the economic system that creates wealth, while the political and scientific systems responsible for risk management frequently exhibit regulatory laxity or failure. As Beck points out, “Science can claim to be non-responsible, business can claim to be non-liable, politics can claim to be merely performing legitimation procedures, and the public can claim to lack professional competence” (Beck 1992); “organized non-responsibility” has become the norm in modern institutional systems (Beck 2009).

As an independent supervisory body, the procuratorial organs are specifically tasked with overseeing and counterbalancing this institutional failure. The legitimacy of the procuratorial organs’ plaintiff standing lies not in their own suffering of harm, but in their statutory duty to represent the public interest (Sun 2017). Existing research generally acknowledges that the procuratorial organs’ participation in environmental civil public interest litigation has a solid theoretical foundation and possesses statutory authority, credibility, and practical advantages that other entities lack (Li and Wu 2016; Zeng 2025). However, multiple studies have also highlighted significant issues in their practical operation, including the ambiguous scope of the right to sue, a narrow source of cases, unclear boundaries with administrative authority, and a tendency to unduly encroach upon the right of social organizations to sue in practice (Zeng 2025; Li and Wu 2016; Gao and Whittaker 2019).

Article 1075 of the Ecological and Environmental Code jointly designates procuratorial organs and social organizations as plaintiffs, marking a shift in the status of procuratorial organs from the “subsidiary” role established by judicial interpretations to that of independent plaintiffs. However, a conflict exists between the “subsidiary” priority rule in current judicial interpretations and the provisions of the Code. This paper proposes the following framework to reconcile the two sets of rules.

First, clarify that procuratorial organs may file lawsuits directly and independently. Under the following circumstances, procuratorial organs may directly file environmental civil public interest lawsuits with the court: (1) there are no qualified environmental protection organizations; (2) qualified environmental protection organizations fail to file a lawsuit within the statutory time limit or abandon the lawsuit without just cause; (3) the case involves major national interests or public interests requiring timely intervention by procuratorial organs; (4) where an environmental organization has filed a lawsuit but lacks the capacity to effectively advance the proceedings. These circumstances uphold the core spirit of the “subsidiary” logic in Article 13 of the current judicial interpretation, but adjust it from a general principle to specific scenarios of application, thereby aligning with the Code’s designation of the procuratorate as an independent plaintiff.

Second, clarify the prosecutorial authorities’ function of supporting lawsuits. When environmental organizations possess the capacity to file a lawsuit, the prosecutorial authorities should participate in the litigation by providing support rather than directly substituting for them. Specific forms of support include providing legal advice, assisting in investigations and evidence collection, and issuing opinions in support of the lawsuit. This approach both respects the priority status of environmental organizations as representatives of the risk community and leverages the prosecutorial authorities’ advantages in exercising public power.

Third, the collaborative governance functions of the procuratorate should be strengthened. The procuratorate should not merely act as a prosecuting entity but should also perform the following collaborative functions: establishing information-sharing and case-transfer mechanisms with environmental authorities; supporting and supervising lawsuits filed by environmental organizations; and supervising defendants’ fulfillment of remediation obligations during the judgment enforcement phase. These functions have already been explored in practice, and it is recommended that they be institutionalized in supporting judicial interpretations.

4.4. The Framework for Limited Plaintiff Standing of Individuals

The proposition of “organized irresponsibility” in risk society theory reveals a problem of unclear attribution of responsibility between those who create risks and those who bear them. As the most direct bearers of environmental risks, individuals are often the first to perceive abnormal changes in risk. Granting individuals limited plaintiff standing helps break the impasse of “everyone is responsible, yet no one takes responsibility.” The public’s perception of risk is itself a social process, and when the judicial system responds to the risk concerns generated by different social structures, it is itself participating in a social process that drives institutional evolution. Current law excludes individual citizens from the scope of plaintiffs in environmental civil public interest litigation, which constitutes a normative choice suited to the governance landscape at the present stage. Drawing on the governance logic revealed by risk society theory, exploring limited plaintiff standing for individuals remains worthy of discussion for prospective institutional design. The formulation of rules governing individual plaintiff standing requires a balance between openness and restriction. Full liberalization may trigger frivolous litigation, while a total ban will block vital channels for risk identification. Accordingly, this paper puts forward institutional proposals covering three dimensions.

First, clearly define the exceptional circumstances under which individuals may file public interest lawsuits. Individuals shall enjoy limited plaintiff standing only in the following three scenarios: (1) cases of special harm, where an individual has suffered harm distinct from that of the general public due to environmental risks—such as health damage or property loss—but the harm does not yet meet the compensation threshold for private interest litigation, or where private interest litigation is unlikely to provide effective relief; (2) cases of exhaustion of administrative remedies, where an individual has reported or filed a complaint with the administrative agency responsible for oversight, but the agency fails to respond or take action within the statutory time limit, and no qualified environmental organization has filed a lawsuit; (3) cases of urgent risk, where there is an imminent, irreversible major environmental risk, environmental organizations are unable to respond in a timely manner, and the procuratorate has not intervened. All of the above scenarios require individuals to exhaust administrative remedies or notify environmental protection organizations to the greatest extent possible before filing a lawsuit, thereby reflecting the public interest litigation’s role as a last resort.

Second, establish pre-litigation procedures and eligibility reviews. Before an individual files a public interest lawsuit, they must submit a written report to the administrative agency responsible for supervision, allowing the agency a statutory period—such as 60 days—to address the matter. Simultaneously, they must issue a written notice to the procuratorate or to environmental protection organizations at the provincial level or above, so that these bodies may assess whether to intervene or support the lawsuit. Only after the aforementioned procedures have been completed and no qualified entity has filed a lawsuit may an individual bring a lawsuit before the court. During the acceptance stage, the court should also conduct a preliminary review to determine whether the individual plaintiff falls under the aforementioned exceptional circumstances; if the conditions are not met, the case should be dismissed.

Third, establish mechanisms to curb malicious litigation. To prevent frivolous lawsuits, provisions should stipulate that if the court ultimately determines that an individual plaintiff’s lawsuit lacks reasonable grounds or constitutes malicious litigation, the individual shall bear the defendant’s litigation costs and attorney’s fees. In serious cases, fines may be imposed. Additionally, individual plaintiffs may be required to provide a certain amount of litigation cost security to offset the risk of malicious litigation.

The institutional design in these three areas aims to clarify the legitimate basis for individual lawsuits, ensure their supplementary and exceptional nature, and simultaneously curb the motivation for frivolous litigation. In this way, the system both responds to the call for individual participation in risk society theory and strictly limits the plaintiff standing of individual plaintiffs to a reasonable scope, thereby avoiding disruption to the existing legal framework.

5. Conclusions

Using risk society theory as an analytical framework, this paper examines the institutional dilemmas, normative conflicts, and theoretical optimisation of the plaintiff-standing system in China’s environmental civil public interest litigation after the codification of the Ecological and Environmental Code.

Theoretically, this paper illustrates that risk society theory, featuring the core propositions of scientific uncertainty, the diffuseness and latency of harm, and “organized irresponsibility”, poses a fundamental challenge to the traditional litigation logic centred on actual harm. This study confirms the legitimacy of extending interest in litigation from “actual harm” to “significant risk”, which constitutes the logical premise for preventive environmental public interest litigation. However, such a theoretical premise cannot directly lead to automatic adjustments to plaintiff-standing rules, and relevant institutional ideas need further transformation grounded in the established normative foundation of risk prevention within Chinese environmental law. With the expansion of preventive interest in litigation, the judging logic of plaintiff qualification should shift from the traditional attribution-of-harm paradigm to the logic of risk-community representation. The characteristics of modern environmental risks and preventive governance logic uncovered by risk society theory provide an analytical perspective for future systematic institutional adjustment.

At the institutional level, this paper traces the evolutionary logic of the plaintiff-standing system for environmental civil public interest litigation in China and identifies key institutional issues that require clarification under codification. First, the preventive litigation rules for significant risks established by judicial interpretations suffer from limited normative rank, and unified judicial criteria for identifying significant risks urgently need to be refined. Second, the supplementary positioning of procuratorial organs under judicial interpretations creates normative tension with their status as independent plaintiffs laid down by the Ecological and Environmental Code. Third, the admission mechanism for social-organization plaintiffs still leaves room for optimisation to meet the demands of risk-oriented governance. Fourth, individual citizens, as direct bearers of environmental risks, are entirely excluded from the scope of plaintiffs under the current regime. This institutional arrangement calls for further reflection grounded in the underlying logic of risk-society theory. Overall, the existing plaintiff-standing system has not yet developed a complete normative framework suited to preventive environmental governance.

Practically, a comparison of Guiding Case No. 173 and No. 257 shows that Chinese judicial practice has recognized preventive public-interest litigation targeting significant environmental risks, achieving institutional breakthroughs at the level of interest-in-litigation. Nevertheless, existing judicial rulings focus merely on the substantive identification of significant risks and do not touch upon adaptive adjustments to the plaintiff-standing system. Although risk-oriented preventive litigation is accepted in individual cases, a plaintiff-standing institutional system aligned with risk-governance logic has not yet been established. Accordingly, exploring a differentiated framework of plaintiff standing tailored to the demands of preventive governance carries practical significance.

Based on the above-mentioned theoretical, institutional and practical analysis, this paper constructs a differentiated plaintiff-standing institutional system adapted to the needs of preventive governance. First, the current litigation rules concerning significant risks mainly rely on judicial interpretations with limited normative rank. It is necessary to stipulate the justiciability of significant risks and their identification criteria at the level of higher-ranked law to mitigate the instability in judicial application. On this basis, the admission mechanism for social-organization plaintiffs should be optimised, appropriately expanding the scope of qualified social organisations, and establishing admission review rules suited to risk-oriented governance by taking statutory qualifications, the relevance of public-interest functions and the magnitude of case-related risks into account. Second, concerning the positioning divergence of procuratorial organs under different norms, an operational model combining independent prosecution and auxiliary prosecution is adopted to reconcile the application of provisions in the Code and judicial interpretations. Finally, supplementary and limited plaintiff-standing is granted to citizens under strict constraints to fill institutional gaps in environmental-risk identification and remedy, so as to form a plaintiff-standing institutional system with mutually compatible functions. The theoretical contribution of this paper lies in its concrete application of risk society theory to the context of codification, and in providing specific guidance for supporting judicial interpretations.

This paper makes theoretical contributions by embedding risk-society theory into the institutional context of China’s environmental codification, and establishing normative links between the identification of preventive interest-in-litigation and the construction of the plaintiff-standing institutional system. It offers insights for the implementation and application of supporting rules under the Ecological and Environmental Code, as well as theoretical references for future institutional evolution that address the demands of preventive governance. This study also has limitations: the proposed differentiated structural framework awaits continuous testing and refinement through subsequent legislative revisions and judicial practice. In particular, the institutional conception concerning limited plaintiff standing for citizens calls for more rigorous theoretical argumentation. Further research may conduct empirical tests on the operability of this framework alongside the implementation of the Ecological and Environmental Code.