Law

The synergistic interaction between the Civil Code and the Ecological Environment Code empowers both parties

2025-04-22   

Currently, China has initiated the compilation of the Ecological Environment Code. Why is it necessary to separately compile an ecological environment code even though there is already a "Green Civil Code"? What is the connection between these two legal codes? How to handle the relationship between two legal codes well? This series of issues must be given high attention and properly addressed during the process of compiling the Ecological Environment Code. The Civil Code establishes "green rules" for civil activity subjects. In fact, the above series of issues have been taken into consideration when compiling the Civil Code. The Civil Code of our country, as a code compiled by humanity after entering the 21st century, fully presents the historical background and characteristics of the ecological century. The 2018 constitutional amendment included the construction of ecological civilization in the overall layout of the country's "Five in One" and clarified the goal of building a modern and strong country as "Beautiful China". As the fundamental law of the socialist market economy with Chinese characteristics, the Civil Code embodies the constitutional spirit of national ecological civilization construction and establishes "green rules" for civil activity subjects. At the same time, the Civil Code has established corresponding incentive mechanisms to safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of civil subjects in transforming "green mountains and clear waters" into "golden mountains and silver mountains", and has made active explorations in natural resource protection, ecological environment maintenance, and intergenerational equity. By coordinating the relationship between development and protection, the Civil Code promotes the shift of civil activities from "economic priority" to "environmental friendliness", achieving modernization of "harmonious coexistence between humans and nature". The "green provisions" stipulated in the Civil Code are not advocacy or arbitrary norms, but mandatory norms. On the one hand, the "Green Principle" in Article 9 of the Civil Code regards ecological environment protection as the basic principle of civil activities, which has universal binding force on all civil legal relationships, covering the entire process of establishing, changing, and terminating civil activities, and requiring civil subjects to take into account ecological protection when exercising their rights and fulfilling their obligations. At the same time, the relevant green clauses stipulated in the Property Rights, Contract, and Tort Liability sections guide civil subjects to balance ecological sustainability while pursuing economic interests through specific civil legal norms. It can be said that this is not only a landmark innovation of the Civil Code in response to the needs of the times, but also reserves collaborative innovation space for the Ecological Environment Code. The dual empowerment of the Civil Code and the Ecological Environment Code in China has many similarities between the Civil Code and the currently being compiled Ecological Environment Code. Both are fundamental laws in the socialist legal system with Chinese characteristics, and share a common mission to achieve the national goal of "Beautiful China". They must be committed to properly handling the relationship between development and protection, and promoting harmonious coexistence between humans and nature. But the two codes also have many differences. The two belong to different types of legal norms in the socialist legal system with Chinese characteristics, carrying specific tasks of adjusting different aspects of social and economic life. This also means that the two must have corresponding "boundaries" or "ranges" and cannot be replaced by each other, otherwise it will cause the two legal codes to lose their function of distinguishing and resolving disputes. Specifically, the Civil Code mainly regulates the property and personal relationships between equal subjects, focusing more on the relationships between "people" in economic and social life. Its core value is freedom, emphasizing the equality of subjects, autonomy of will, and self responsibility. By stipulating the "Green Principles" and related green clauses, the Civil Code integrates the requirements of ecological environment protection into people's daily lives, and limits the "greening" of content related to environmental protection. Through property rights, contracts, and other systems, the ecological environment is indirectly protected. The Ecological Environment Code mainly adjusts the relationship between the state, citizens, and legal persons in the process of ecological environment protection, focusing more on the relationship between "human nature human". Its core value is sustainable development, emphasizing the harmonious coexistence between humans and nature, protection of environmental public interests, and ecological priority. It is a "green code" that comprehensively applies public and private law norms to adjust social relationships related to ecological environment protection. Through systems such as ecological environment supervision, ecological environment standards, ecological environment administrative licensing, ecological environment damage compensation, and public interest litigation, the Ecological Environment Code directly regulates environmental behavior and achieves comprehensive protection of the ecological environment. It can be seen that although the Civil Code and the Ecological Environment Code share common goals in protecting the ecological environment, there are significant differences in legal attributes, value orientations, adjustment objects, normative types, legislative purposes, and institutional design. The Civil Code reserves space for collaboration with the Ecological Environment Code. On the one hand, the Civil Code integrates the concept of ecological environment protection throughout the entire process of civil activities by stipulating green principles, establishing a green property rights system, setting green obligation boundaries for contract freedom, expanding the concept of personality rights, and improving the system of environmental tort liability. At the same time, most of the green provisions in the Civil Code adopt an "incomplete legislation" approach, which needs to be supplemented and improved by the Ecological Environment Code to provide judgment standards and implementation basis for ecological environment protection in specific civil activities. In other words, the Civil Code provides a framework for the legalization of private law through green provisions, while the Ecological Environment Code fills in details through technical standards and public law means, jointly constructing a modern ecological environment legal system of "public-private governance". Therefore, in the process of compiling the Ecological Environment Code, it is necessary to focus on the main functions of the Civil Code in addressing the environmental externalities of private behavior and the Ecological Environment Code in addressing systemic environmental governance issues. We need to find a balance point between private law autonomy and public interests, and determine the scope of complementary adjustments and coordinate cross disciplinary relationships through goal coordination, value integration, basic principle refinement, and specific institutional linkage. This will achieve two-way empowerment, provide solid legal protection for the construction of a beautiful China, and contribute Chinese solutions to global sustainable development.(outlook new era)

Edit:Fu Yu Responsible editor:Chi Hua

Source:legaldaily.com

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