Mending environment is a 'priority' in green lawsuits

Chinese courts must take ecological restoration as a priority when hearing environmental disputes and must ease the path for public-interest litigation in order to reduce ecological damage, said Jiang Bixin, vice-president of the Supreme People's Court.

Increasingly serious protests in response to environmental damage and the surge of environmental disputes in recent years have led to new requirements in environmental case hearings, "which is why it is urgent for Chinese courts to learn to remediate the environment through trials," Jiang said during a two-day seminar in Fujian province for courts that regularly hear environmental cases.

By the end of last year, Chinese courts heard more than 230,000 environmental cases, and 27,552 of those were criminal disputes, according to the court.