First public lawsuit against polluters may encourage enforcers to do better

EIGHT COMPANIES ARE REPORTEDLY BEING SUED by the China Biodiversity Conservation and Green Development Foundation for dumping untreated waste in the Tengger Desert between North China's Inner Mongolia autonomous region and Northwest China's Gansu province. It is the first public interest litigation filed by a nonprofit organization against the companies involved since their illegal activities were exposed in 2014. Comments:

As some of the enterprises that illegally discharged the polluting waste have said, the worst they had expected is receiving administrative punishments, which just asks them to rectify their actions. The costs of illegal dumping must be increased, so that companies abide by the law. Public interest litigation could be a key way to make the enterprises fully recover the ecological environment they polluted, thus demonstrating that similar misconduct will face severer punishment than expected.

Ma Yong, a researcher working at a law center under the Supreme People's Court's environmental tribunal, Aug 18