Top court advocates new green tribunals

Move aims to prevent local govts from influencing environment cases

China's top court supports hearing environmental and resources cases without regard to the administrative regions where such cases occur, aiming instead to let nature dictate the jurisdictions in a bid to prevent judicial intervention by local governments.

A guideline issued by the Supreme People's Court on Thursday on improving trials involving the environment and resources encourages grassroots courts to set up environmental tribunals based on the location of habitats.