Does Public Interest Litigation Promote the Performance of Urban Environmental Governance? An Empirical Study Based on Micro-data of 287 Prefecture-level Cities

Abstract

In the context of the“new normal”of China’s economy, serious environmental pollution is hindering the high-quality development of China’s economy. Environmental governance is inseparable from the protection of the rule of law, but in China’s traditional environmental governance, the administrative department and the judicial department perform their respective duties, which easily leads to environmental pollution governance as a mere formality. Promoting the effective linkage of environmental administration and environmental justice is the inherent requirement of improving the ecological environment and promoting the green and high-quality development of economy. Based on the data of 287 prefecture-level cities in China from 2010 to 2018, this paper uses the multi-period DID method to empirically test the pollution emission reduction effect of the public interest litigation system by procuratorate. First of all, we test the impact of the public interest litigation system by procuratorate on industrial emissions as a whole. The numbers of civil, administrative and criminal incidental civil cases are chosen as the dependent variables to test the implementation of the system. Secondly, we use the mediation effect model to explore the internal mechanism of the public interest litigation system by procuratorate to improve the performance of urban environmental governance. Thirdly, we test the heterogeneity of all prefecture-level cities. Finally, the parallel trend test and the placebo test are used to test the robustness of the results. The findings are as follows: Firstly, the public interest litigation system by procuratorate can effectively reduce the emissions of industrial pollutants and improve the performance of urban environmental governance. Secondly, its main mechanism is to promote the governance of urban environmental pollution through environmental supervision of procuratorial organs, judicial and administrative linkage, and enhancing the participation of citizens in environmental governance. Thirdly, the public interest litigation system by procuratorate has a better emission reduction effect in the central region. At the same time, the system has a good implementation effect in key environmental protection cities. Based on the above, this paper believes that we should strengthen the linkage between environmental administration and environmental justice from the construction of the ecological co-governance system of multiple administrative and judicial subjects, and the construction of the communication and cooperation mechanism between procuratorial organs, the public and environmental protection organizations.