The Supreme People's Court recently announced the establishment of an Environmental Resource Tribunal and issued the "Opinions of the Supreme People's Court on Comprehensively Strengthening Environmental Resource Trial Work to Provide Strong Judicial Guarantee for Promoting Ecological Civilization Construction" (hereinafter referred to as the "Opinions").
 
The main responsibilities of the Environmental Resource Tribunal of the Supreme People's Court include adjudicating civil cases involving natural environmental pollution tort disputes related to air, water, soil, etc., civil cases involving disputes over the protection and development of geological mineral resources, and civil disputes related to the protection, development, and utilization of natural resources such as forests and grasslands.
 
The "Opinions" clarify that the basic principles of environmental resource trial work include legal protection, priority protection, emphasis on prevention, and accountability for damages, and that promoting environmental public interest litigation is a breakthrough and focus for comprehensively strengthening environmental resource trial work, with specific provisions for vigorously promoting environmental civil public interest litigation. First, fully guarantee the environmental civil public interest litigation rights of legally designated agencies and relevant organizations. Second, explore and improve the trial procedures for environmental civil public interest litigation. Third, legally determine the liability methods and compensation scope for environmental civil public interest litigation. Fourth, explore the establishment of a reasonable litigation cost burden mechanism.
 
The "Opinions" emphasize the need to actively innovate the mechanisms for environmental resource trial work. Actively explore the centralized trial of environmental resource criminal, civil, and administrative cases. Explore the establishment of a jurisdiction system for environmental resource cases that is appropriately separated from administrative divisions.
 
The Supreme People's Court will focus on the natural attributes of environmental factors such as water and air, combined with the volume of environmental resource cases in various regions, to explore the establishment of specialized trial institutions for environmental resources across administrative divisions based on watersheds or ecological functional areas, implementing centralized jurisdiction over environmental resource cases and effectively adjudicating cases of cross-administrative division pollution.
 
In strengthening the specialization of environmental resource trial institutions, the "Opinions" point out that high-level people's courts should establish specialized trial institutions for environmental resources. Intermediate people's courts should reasonably establish environmental resource trial institutions based on the volume of environmental resource trial work; in areas with insufficient case numbers, environmental resource collegial panels can be established. Individual grassroots people's courts with a relatively high number of cases may also consider establishing environmental resource trial institutions with the approval of the high-level people's court.