超越以往：环境公民诉讼趋势

Now More Than Ever:Environmental Citizen Suit Trends

本文是一份关于美国公民诉讼制度实施情况的考察报告。作者考察并统计了从2001年11月的联邦最高法院地球之友诉莱德劳环境服务公司(TOC)案到2003年5月(作者完成本文)期间有关公民诉讼案件的司法判决和1995年至2003年5月的公民诉讼案件统计数据。在这个考察和统计基础上,作者指出了截至当时的公民诉讼发展趋势。由于美国的环境法律授权"公民"提起两类公民诉讼即针对企业的"执行之诉"和针对联邦环保局的"敦促机构执行之诉",这项考察和统计沿着这两条线索展开。需要指出的是,这项考察和研究的历史背景是民主党克林顿总统执政(1993—2001年)的后期和共和党小布什总统执政(2001—2009年)的前期。前者相对重视环保,后者则相反。

This paper is a rare investigation report on the legal practice of the environmental citizen suits in the United States.The author investigated and counted up statistics,on the one hand,on court decisions of citizens suits from the Supreme Court Laidlaw Case of November,2001,to May of 2003（when the author completed this report）,and,on the other hand,on the data of citizen suits from 1995 to May,2003.On the basis of the survey,the author pointed out the trend of development of citizen suits as of then.As the environmental laws in the United States authorize two types of citizen suits,i.e.＂enforcement actions＂against enterprises and ＂agency-forcing actions＂against the federal Environmental Protection Agency,the survey goes on along the two clues.It is worth noting that the historical background of the survey is the early stage of democratic President Clinton＇s administration（1993—2001）and the republican George w.Bush Administration（2001—2009）.The former is more environmental friendly,while the latter is the opposite.