— Analysis of Environmental Personality Interests Based on Human Rights

 

ZHOU Ke * & JIANG Haojun**

 

Abstract: Environmental personality interests based on human rights reflect the multiple values of ecological order, ecological justice, and ecological freedom, and are closely linked to the protection of the right to life and the right to health. They are also related to human dignity and the personal freedom of civil subjects and conform to formal and essential standards of personality rights, which should be included in the scope of personality rights for protection. The construction and application of environmental personality rights faces bottlenecks such as the partiality of subjects, limitation of objects, and hysteresis of responsibilities in the protection of environmental personality rights.Environmental personality rights are supposed to reflect the needs of the development of modern human rights. We should expand the scope of its connotative power and function based on the Green Principle of the Civil Code, and follow a networked, typified, and systematic path of protection, so as to manifest the people-centered philosophy of the Civil Code and the Environmental Protection Law.

 

Keywords: environmental personality interests · human rights · human dignity · personality rights

 

The Report to the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China pointed out that Chinese-style modernization is modernization that promotes harmonious coexistence between humans and nature. It must adhere to the people-centered principle and regard enriching the spiritual and cultural lives of the people as one of the main goals and tasks for the next five years. Xi Jinping’s thought on ecological civilization has promoted the development of China’s human rights cause in the field of ecological civilization construction. The environmental personality interests, as natural and moral rights that humans should possess, urgently need to be reflected in substantive law and established as a certain and predictable rule to be relied upon in the application of law.

 

 

 

In 2004, China’s Constitution was amended to include the expression “the state respects and guarantees human rights.” The incorporation of human rights into the Constitution elevated it from a matter of political systems to a constitutional norm, highlighting the position and role of human rights in state affairs and indicating a profound transformation in the values and principles of China’s Constitution.¹ Entering a new era, with the increasing importance placed on environmental protection by the country, the construction of an ecological civilization is also on the road of legalization. In 2018, an ecological civilization was formally included in the preamble of China’s Constitution, and the concept of “beauty” was added to the vision of a great socialist power,indicating that the legal governance of the environment has a more explicit constitutional basis in the context of the rule of law. In September 2021, China released the National Human Rights Action Plan (2021-2025), in which “environmental rights” were separated into their own chapter alongside “economic, social, and cultural rights” and “civil rights and political rights,” becoming an independent category of human rights. This signifies that the expansion of human rights in the field of environmental protection has received recognition from national policy. On February 25, 2022, Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Commitee delivered an important speech during the 37th collective study session, emphasizing the need to “comprehensively improve the protection of various human rights in the coordinated development of material civilization, political civilization, spiritual civilization, social civilization, and ecological civilization.”² It demonstrates the governing philosophy and national stance of continuously improving the protection of environmental human rights under the guidance of Xi Jinping’s Thought on Ecological Civilization. In the context of the deep integration of ecological civilization and human rights protection, human rights are endowed with a higher value pursuit. A non-property interest ensuring people live in a suitable environment — the environmental personality interests — has become an inherent part of the human rights cause.

 

To grasp and understand environmental personality interests, we must first clarify what is meant by environmental personality. Having subjective existence, humans are a unity of nature and society, possessing both natural and social attributes, with natural attributes as the foundation. However, due to the traditional anthropocentric ethical view, people have long tended to attribute human subjectivity to the sum of social relationships, without deeply exploring the relationship between humans and nature. After profound contemplation and critique of traditional anthropocentric philosophy, American scholar Aldo Leopold realized that an excessive emphasis on individual economic interests could bring irreversible damage to nature. In his book A Sand County Almanac published in 1949, Leopold proposed the “Land Ethic” theory³, which called for redefining the relationship between humans and nature through a holistic ecological perspective. He emphasized that nature itself is an indivisible organism, and humanity, as a part of the ecological environment, has a symbiotic relationship with the natural world. Therefore, while realizing individual values, it is also important to consider the overall value of the ecosystem, thus affirming the natural attributes of a human. General Secretary Xi Jinping’s concept of “humans and nature are a community of life” proposed in the Report to the 19th National Congress is a profound interpretation of the natural attributes of humans. Based on summarizing the experiences of human civilization development, he creatively put forward the historical judgment that “civilization thrives if the eco-environment is healthy, and declines if it deteriorates,” emphasizing the ecological civilization concept of “harmonious coexistence between human and nature.” This symbiotic relationship is not only manifested in the reliance of humans on the material products provided by the environment for survival, but also in the enjoyment of spiritual pleasures provided by the environment, such as the right to clean air, pure water, abundant sunlight, tranquil living spaces, and a beautiful natural environment. “Aesthetic and environmental interests, like a prosperous economic life, are essential components of our social life.”⁴ Only when living in a healthy and suitable environment can humans realize personal dignity and the value of personal freedom. Thus, a good environment symbolizes the subjectivity of humans and is “a necessary condition for being human.”⁵ This kind of subjectivity is manifested in social relationships as the equal right of every person to live in a good environment, along with the obligation to maintain the overall interests of the environment. Therefore, environmental personality represents a new type of social relationship established on the basis of harmony between humans and nature, indicating that everyone has the right to enjoy the benefits of a good environment.⁶

 

The relationship between humans and nature demonstrates that environmental personality interests are personality rights and interests based on the ecological and aesthetic values of the resources and the environment, with distinct human rights characteristics.⁷ Humans are the products of nature, and the protection of environmental personality interests is both an extension of our natural attributes at the social level and an affirmation of the concept of “being human” at the level of environmental ethics. In the ecological civilization era, the human rights system has been endowed with new ecological value connotations.

 

 

Since the late 1960s, with the environmental crisis becoming increasingly complex and severe, the number of cases related to environmental infringements in Western countries has skyrocketed. How to protect personal environmental interests has become a problem that cannot be ignored by legislative bodies in various countries, and incorporating environmental rights into legal texts has become a new legislative trend. A representative example is the Charte de l’environnement de 2004 enacted in France in 2004, which comprehensively and systematically regulates the protection of individual environmental rights in the form of a charter. It establishes a universally valuable modern concept of environmental protection and is a typical representative of relevant legislative regulations. Articles 1 and 2 of the Charter declare the environmental rights and obligations of individuals, stating that “everyone has the right to live in a healthy and habitable environment,” and “everyone has the obligation to protect and improve the environment.”⁸ These expressions provide.” a reference for establishing individual environmental rights in China. In addition, the charter specifically provides protective provisions for the environmental procedural rights of natural persons. Article 7 stipulates citizens’ rights to environmental information, the right to be informed about the environment, and the right to participate in environmental matters,⁹ which also offers a foreign legislative reference for designing China’s individual environmental rights system. In the United States, the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), enacted in 1969, stipulates that individuals have both the right to enjoy a healthy environment and the obligation to maintain and improve the environment.¹⁰ In addition, states such as Hawaii, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Massachusetts, and Montana have confirmed individual environmental rights and obligations in their state constitutions. For example, the Pennsylvania Constitution stipulates that everyone has the right to enjoy a good environment, including the protection of the ecological environment’s landscape, historical, and aesthetic values (Article 1, Section 27). The Massachusetts Constitution states that everyone shall have the right to clean air and water, to be free from the invasion of noise, and to enjoy the environment’s landscape, historical, and aesthetic values (Amendment 49).¹¹ The legal recognition of environmental rights in the United States is, in fact, a legislative affirmation of environmental personality rights. In a word, whether in constitutional documents or basic environmental laws, the recognition of individual environmental rights to curb the erosion and encroachment of citizens’ rights by environmental problems has become a practical achievement in legislative practices of various countries. Although the concept of “environmental personality interests” has not been formally established yet, the protection of environmental personality interests has already been directly promoted.

 

 

Environmental personality interests are the manifestation of human intention to pursue a good relationship between humans and nature, as well as the material and spiritual demands generated by human utilization of environmental elements and ecosystems. It is closely related to the development of social productivity and the realization of ecological value.

 

 

John Rawls has pointed out that “the primary subject of justice is the basic structure of society.”¹² The implementation of justice is usually based on the allocation of social public interests, and the fair distribution of public interests is based on the common interests of the entire human society. Fair social distribution should not only reflect the overall interests but also consider individual interests, and should pay attention to both economic resources and ecological resources. Under the background of the traditional market economy, social distribution justice pays more attention to the distribution of social and economic resources. However, the distribution of economic resources is not a matter of right or wrong judgment, but a judgment of profit and loss. Everyone expects to gain as much wealth as possible from the distribution of social and economic resources and believes that it is just for everyone to get more resources. However, they overlook the ecological prerequisites for resource accumulation, and the objective fact that severe ecological damage and pollution hinder the further acquisition of social resources.

 

Environmental personality interests aim to protect the ecological benefits provided by environmental elements and systems for humans, and to achieve ecological justice on this basis. Ecological benefits not only include human material needs for ecosystems, but also embody the spiritual needs of humans for ecological aesthetics, entertainment, and culture, such as good lighting, clean air and water, etc. This corresponds to the “ecosystem services” in environmental economics.¹³ This kind of ecological spiritual benefit has strong personal attributes that are indivisible and non-transferable. It is different from the economic and social benefits of the ecosystem. It is not only the key to realizing the value of personal dignity, but also the cornerstone of guaranteeing the value of human existence. The realization of ecological benefits should include both ecological material benefits and spiritual benefits as important rights of people. By acknowledging these rights, it can respond to and solve people’s needs for a good environment, and consider the balance between economic value and ecological value in social distribution, thus achieving ecological justice.

 

 

The root cause of the environmental crisis lies in the imbalance of the social order. All human production activities exist within the ecosystem composed of environmental factors. Once the environment deteriorates, it will inevitably have adverse effects on the healthy and harmonious development of the entire society. The social system arrangements, behavioral patterns, values, and other aspects established by humans will have a huge impact on the ecosystem. These impacts can either worsen the ecological environment or promote the healthy operation of the ecosystem. Therefore, in order to alleviate environmental problems and control increasingly serious pollution, it is necessary to start by regulating the relationship between humans and society. This is a crucial issue concerning whether human beings can adhere to sustainable development and smoothly transition from an industrial civilization to an ecological civilization.

 

In the context of promoting ecological civilization in this new historical period, the emergence and expression of environmental personality interests reflect people’s strong desire to build a new “social-natural” relationship, which originates from the recognition and interpretation of subjective value and subjectivity in the relationship between humans and nature. Environmental personality interests require people to actively change social organization, distribution methods, and other aspects, promote the establishment of a new type of harmonious coexistence between humans and nature, and establish associated ideologies and values, so as to promote social change from the protection of individual rights, innovative reorganization and development of the existing social order.

 

 

From the perspective of the relationship between humans and nature, “ecological freedom” refers to the ability of every organism to live and coexist in its environment, while realizing its own value. Therefore, the true freedom of human existence should also come from harmonious coexistence with the natural world. This means that if humans want to achieve freedom in their existence, they must have a stable, coordinated, and balanced relationship with nature. This is a fundamental element for the comprehensive and free development of humanity.

 

The Declaration of the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment (the Stockholm Declaration) indicates that “everyone has the basic right to enjoy freedom, equality, and adequate living conditions in a good environment.” The Global Pact for the Environment also emphasizes that “all individuals have the right to live in a healthy environment conducive to their health, well-being, dignity, culture, and self-development. From the perspective of natural law, environmental personality interests are an innate natural right that goes beyond positive law and is a fundamental human right. It is concentrated on the subjective initiative of natural persons in the relationship between humans and nature, and it aims to achieve personal development based on harmonious coexistence with nature. In the relationship between humans and nature, people have freedom of will and action, and the freedom of will is based on human nature, that is, the “ecological freedom” that humans can enjoy naturally without the need for legal or governmental permission, and achieve personal values on this basis.

 

 

 

As disputes around environmental personality continue to increase, it is urgent to define its internal and external scope and establish its legal status within the existing legal framework. Currently, the personality rights section of China’s Civil Code does not directly provide provisions for the protection of environmental personality interests, and the personality rights attributes of environmental personality interests have not been recognized in positive law. There is still controversy among scholars regarding the positioning of environmental personality interests. Therefore, it is necessary to start from the characteristics of environmental personality interests and provide proof of its legitimacy as the object of personality rights. The complex and diverse environmental crises in the world today have brought new challenges to traditional legal studies. In 2001, the first case in China in which a company was held responsible for compensating for the mental damages caused by environmental pollution occurred in Zhejiang province, which attracted widespread attention. The Hangzhou Intermediate People’s Court ruled that the defendant, a chemical company in Zhejiang province, should pay the plaintiff RMB 203,500 for mental damages. The court held that although the chemical company’s behavior did not cause physical harm to the plaintiff, it disrupted the plaintiff’s learning and living conditions, causing serious psychological harm, and therefore the company should bear the responsibility for compensating for mental damages caused. This ruling has sparked much debate, and from the perspective of civil law, it has clearly gone beyond the scope of traditional civil law. As a response to the environmental crisis, Article 9 of China’s Civil Code established the Green Principle, providing an opportunity to study the legal system for protecting environmental personality. Although this is an innovative principle of the Civil Code, this provision only establishes the basic principle of environmental protection in civil activities and lacks a specific application basis. Furthermore, the personality rights chapter of the Civil Code does not reflect the natural person’s personality interests related to the environment. Therefore, clarifying the relationship between environmental personality interests and personality rights and clearly defining the personality rights attributes of environmental personality interests have become important content of the application of China’s Civil Code.

 

 

First, environmental personality interests have the inherent attributes of personality rights. As humans are inherently subjective beings with an inseparable relationship with nature, environmental personality interests are the rights that natural persons are born with and accompany them throughout their lives. A person cannot be deprived of these rights from birth to death. Second, environmental personality interests have the exclusivity of personality rights. Environmental personality involves not only the behavioral freedom of individuals in traditional social environments, but also the behavioral freedom of individuals in a healthy ecological environment. Therefore, environmental personality interests cannot be transferred, waived, or inherited, and can only be exercised by the individual. Finally, the universality of environmental crises determines that environmental issues not only affect the behavioral freedom of individuals, but also relate to the dignity value of human beings as a whole, and even threaten the realization of inter-generational justice. Therefore, only by incorporating environmental personality interests into the object of personality rights and incorporating environmental protection concepts into the “essence of being human”, can the unity of personal behavioral freedom and the dignity value of individuals and human beings as a whole be achieved.

 

Currently, there is still controversy in academia regarding the definition of the attributes of environmental personality interests. Some scholars argue that “environmental personality rights is a subsidiary right of environmental rights,”¹⁴ but the authors of this paper have some doubts about this assertion. This view, while noting the similarities between environmental rights and environmental personality interests, overlooks their essential differences. On the one hand, the object of environmental rights is environmental interests, and the object for adjustment is external environmental factors, while the object of environmental personality interests is personality interests, and the object for adjustment is internal personality factors. On the other hand, environmental rights emphasize social public attributes, focusing on safeguarding citizens’ procedural rights, such as the right to information, participation, and supervision. Environmental personality interests emphasize personal attributes, focusing on safeguarding citizens’ substantive rights, and reflecting the value of natural persons’ personal freedom and dignity.¹⁵ Therefore, when environmental elements are endowed with the value of personal dignity, they have personal attributes and should be included in the protection of personality rights rather than environmental rights.¹⁶ Based on the consideration of the correlation and overlap between environmental interests and the protection of personality rights, Professor Wang Liming, who presided over the drafting of the second section “Personality Rights” of the proposed Draft of the Civil Code of China, stipulates that “natural persons have the right to live in a healthy environment with clean, hygienic, and pollution-free living conditions.” Professor Xu Guodong, who presided over the drafting of the first section “Personal Relationship Law” of the proposed Green Civil Code, stipulates that “natural persons have the right to a safe environment that protects their life and health, and have the right to receive reliable information about the environmental conditions.”

 

 

From a comparative law perspective, the judicial trial of the “Osaka International Airport Case” in Japan provides an example of why the interests of environmental personality should be included in the protection of personality rights. In this case, more than 300 residents living near Osaka International Airport filed a lawsuit in the local court of Osaka, demanding that the airport compensate them for the mental damage caused by noise pollution from airplanes and stop using the airport at night. Their lawsuit was approved by the first and second instance courts. The second instance court (Osaka High Court) held that life, health, and mental freedom, as important elements of personality, directly relate to the individual’s survival interests and should be protected by law. Based on the holistic consideration of personality rights, although noise pollution did not cause physical harm to the plaintiffs’ health conditions, it caused unbearable mental suffering and seriously hindered their normal life, which should be regarded as an infringement of personality rights. From the judgment of the Osaka High Court, it can be seen that although the case did not explicitly affirm the personality attribute of environmental personality interests, it actually determined the priority position of personality rights in maintaining individual environmental interests and tended to include environmental personality interests in the protection of personality rights.

 

The authors believe that even if the harm to the body does not reach the level of causing illness, it can still be considered an extension of the infringement on life and health and should be included in the protection of personality rights. In the logical reasoning of the “Osaka International Airport case,” if life and health, as objects of personality rights, are to be protected, then environmental personality interests, as an extension of life and health in the environmental field, should also be included in the protection of personality rights. From the perspective of natural law, the environment itself has rich legal implications. It is not only a carrier of material interests but also carries the interests of personality spirit. This concept provides strong support for extending the infringement of the right to life and health caused by environmental noise infringement in the “Osaka International Airport case” to mental damage. The long-term, latent, and indirect nature of ecological damage makes it difficult to be quantified.¹⁷ On the surface, the primary victim of environmental issues is the right to the physical health of humans. The essence of the right to health is to ensure the normal operation of human physical functions and the integrity of its functions, and high-quality environments are the basis for ensuring the normal operation of human physiological functions. Polluted environments will inevitably harm human health. In this regard, the right to health can provide a legal basis for the victims of environmental violations to remove environmental pollution interference and eliminate environmental pollution risks, strongly supporting their demands for environmental personality interests.

 

 

Environmental personality interests represent the recognition of spiritual values such as aesthetics, history, and culture of nature. In the era of ecological civilization, people have new expectations for a beautiful living environment, and the aesthetic and cultural values brought about by a livable and comfortable environment have become new value pursuits. Environmental pollution and ecological destruction not only harm the life and health interests of natural persons in material terms, but also harm their environmental enjoyment interests in spiritual terms. This kind of harm to spiritual interests is more reflected in the violation of personal dignity and personal freedom.

 

Based on the close connection between the personal dignity of a natural person and their living environment, defining personal dignity and freedom solely based on social attributes is difficult to comprehensively explain the subjective characteristics of a person. In the context of ecological civilization, personal dignity and freedom are reflected not only in the relationship between individuals and society, but also in the relationship between individuals and nature, ensuring that people can live in a suitable environment, and maintaining their basic dignity and freedom in the environment. People living in polluted environments not only face health risks, but also have difficulty interacting with their surroundings, which is a lack of respect for their dignity. Therefore, personal dignity must include the right to live in a good environment, and pollution and destruction of the human living environment are a violation of personal dignity. Environmental personality interests also require the affirmation of people’s freedom of action in the environment. Human freedom can only be realized in a healthy and suitable environment. When environmental crises threaten people’s lives and health, they can also greatly hinder their freedom of activity and development.¹⁸ Regardless of whether it is from a spiritual or material perspective, freedom is of great significance to humans. A good living environment is not only a prerequisite for individual freedom of action, but also a prerequisite for individuals to free themselves from pollution concerns and fears and achieve free development.

 

From the above analysis of the characteristics of environmental personality interests, it can be seen that environmental personality interests, featuring comprehensiveness and compatibility, are a new type of personality rights object inherent to natural persons, with protecting personal freedom and dignity at the core. These characteristics determine that there must be some intersection and overlap between environmental personality interests and other legal interests of personality rights. Therefore, to achieve the comprehensive protection of environmental personality interests, it is necessary to recognize its unified and comprehensive rights and powers, which combine material and spiritual aspects. This is also the core value of private law in protecting environmental personality interests.¹⁹

 

 

 

The modern legal subject theory originates from the dualism of subject and object, which holds that humans are the absolute subject of modern law, while things outside of humanity are the objects of human practice and transformation. Following the Cartesian “I think, therefore I am” dualistic philosophy, the philosophy of subjectivity has gradually become mainstream, such as Locke’s “tabula rasa” theory, Hegel’s “self-consciousness”, Kant’s “transcendental subject” and so on. This kind of subjectivity philosophy has an impact on the rule of law activities. People are endowed with “free will” under the social contract theory and are virtualized as free and equal “rational subjects”. The law encourages people to maximize their interests, and people are virtualized as a subject seeking to maximize their interests. All actions that violate the interests of natural rights and private property are punished.²⁰ The “subject-object dualism” theory has the connotation of an interest-driven mechanism, which maximizes people’s pursuit of economic interests and has indeed promoted social development and progress. The prosperity and development of capitalism fully demonstrate this point. However, the subject-object dualism theory also destroys the relationship between humans and nature, leading to serious ecological crises. In the post-industrial civilization era, natural resources are limited, which is contrary to the rational subject theory centered on maximizing human interests. This will inevitably lead to the over-exploitation of natural resources. Meanwhile, the externality theory tells us that the presupposition of the rational subject only focuses on individual interests and ignores ecological interests, which will inevitably lead to serious environmental pollution problems and ultimately cause ecological crises worldwide.

 

Under the theoretical background of “subject-object dualism,” the “rational subject” has always been regarded as a description of human nature. However, we can easily find through analysis that the generalization and description are one-sided, reflecting only one aspect of human social attributes while ignoring human natural attributes, in other words, the theory fails to comprehensively reflect the essential attributes of humans. Humans are products of nature, and their natural attributes reflect profoundly the relationship between humans and nature. Therefore, natural human attributes are the foundation of their social attributes, and their social attributes can be said to be the socialization of their natural attributes from another perspective. However, the “rational subject” presupposes a complete separation between human natural attributes and social attributes, failing to recognize humans’ dependence on nature. Instead, humans are viewed as the rulers of nature and arbitrarily destroy and trample on nature, ultimately leading to environmental pollution and ecological crises. Based on this, it can be seen that the “rational subject” is built on the theory of anthropocentrism, which completely separates human nature from its natural attributes through abstraction and generalization.²¹ Therefore, the natural attributes of humans must be reflected in the presupposition of the “rational subject”. In other words, ecological interests should also be included in maximizing individual interests, not just economic interests. This is necessary to properly reflect the natural attributes of humans and to build a harmonious relationship between humans and nature.

 

 

Environmental personality, as a new object of personality rights, protects the interests related to the environment, which has two obvious differences from traditional personality rights objects. On the one hand, it is diverse. Environmental personality is a material personality and also a spiritual personality. Environmental pollution and ecological destruction not only pose health risks to individuals, but also cause spiritual damage to the aesthetic, landscape, and cultural values that individuals should enjoy. On the other hand, it is public. The subject of utilizing a good environment is not limited to a particular individual or group but to the entire society. Therefore, it can be seen that the traditional personality rights objects that emphasize individuality and materiality are no longer sufficient to meet the needs of environmental protection today. Therefore, on the basis of reconstructing the concept of traditional personality rights protection, the concept and standards of “environmental personality” should be redefined and the connotation expanded to incorporate the spiritual interests centered on aesthetic, landscape, and cultural values into it, making it an object of personality rights protection.²²

 

From a judicial perspective, the environmental torts that previous judicial practices have focused on mainly include damages to personal rights, property rights, and environmental public interests. In addition to this, environmental torts can lead to a decrease in environmental quality and cause mental harm to civil subjects. Whether this mental harm should be granted judicial relief has become a focus of debate in the judicial practice of China. With the continuous development of ecological civilization construction, people’s pursuit of a healthy and comfortable environment has been increasing, and the mental interests attached to the environment have become a new demand for rights. Due to the lack of a corresponding normative basis in the current law, environmental personality interests have not been directly stipulated as specific personality rights types in the Civil Code. Judicial authorities can only make useful explorations for related cases through judicial activist approaches. Despite its flexibility and diversity, this approach lacks stability due to the difficulty in finding internal legal logic support and may result in different judgments for similar cases in practice.²³

 

 

The core of determining tort liability lies in the definition of damage and relief. However, the provisions on damages in traditional tort law can neither timely discover environmental and ecological damage issues, nor provide timely legal relief, exhibiting significant lag. On the one hand, traditional tort law focuses on remedying actual material damages. When environmental torts do not cause diseases or hazards to the parties’ health, but only lower the environmental quality and damage their mental interests, it is difficult for the parties involved to obtain compensation through public relief due to the difficulty in quantifying such damages. On the other hand, the concealed, long-term, and irreversible nature of environmental torts determines that the ex-post relief mode of traditional torts is difficult to cope with the complex risks and challenges brought about by environmental crises and respond to the public’s interest demands for environmental aesthetics, cultural value, and landscape value.

 

China’s environmental legal system is more focused on the application of public power. Laws and regulations related to environmental protection mostly have public law characteristics, and the remedies for environmental torts also rely heavily on public power. This system tends to provide remedial measures after the occurrence of environmental damage, lacking preventative measures. Furthermore, the high cost and low efficiency of the use of public power make it difficult to detect environmental torts in a timely manner. Therefore, it is difficult to solve environmental problems at the source. Environmental tort victims can only file lawsuits when their life and health interests are actually infringed upon. In other words, even if an act of environmental tort causes damage to the ecological environment, if it does not result in actual harm to the parties involved, there is no legal basis for them to bring a lawsuit. This makes the parties involved relatively passive in environmental protection. As victims of environmental torts, parties involved have the conditions to foresee the occurrence of harm and should be granted the right to safeguard their own environmental interests, which is beneficial for preventing environmental damage.

 

 

The Civil Code in China draws on the legislative system of Pandects and establishes the basic principles of civil activities by extracting common factors. As an innovative structural design of the Civil Code, the ecological protection concept established by the Green Principle puts forward the requirement of “greening” for the specific rules in each section of the Civil Code. Therefore, taking the application of the Civil Code as an opportunity, through the method of expansive interpretation, the scope of application of the Green Principle should be expanded to the section on personality rights, so as to enrich the environmental protection connotation of personality rights, confirm the environmental personality interests that are centered around environmental elements, and explore the realization path under the background of the Civil Code.²⁴ Although the Green Principle has been recognized in the Civil Code, this clause has a strong principle and focuses more on the declarative significance and value advocacy. There is still a lot of room for research in its specific application scenarios. Therefore, we should draw on mature legislative and judicial experiences at home and abroad to explore the specific rules of the Green Principle in the application of personality rights, fully utilize this foundation of the greenization of civil law, and provide a reference for the protection of environmental personality interests in China. The French Charter of the Environment and the legislative experiences of the federal and state governments in the United States offer legislative ideas for China. The judicial precedents of the US case “Friends of the Earth, Inc. v. Laidlaw Environmental Services (TOC), Inc.” and the Chinese case “Chen Jiahan v. Nanjing Rongcheng Property Management Co., Ltd.” also provide useful practical references for improving the protection path of environmental personality interests in China.

 

 

The US case “Friends of the Earth, Inc. v. Laidlaw Environmental Services (TOC), Inc.” provided a reference for the protection of environmental personality interests in China by judging the legal status of environmental personality.²⁵ In 1992, environmental protection organizations such as Friends of the Earth sued Laidlaw Environmental Services in the North Carolina State Legislature, alleging that the company violated regulations by discharging pollutants such as mercury into the North Tyger River. The case was later appealed to the US Supreme Court via the federal district court. The plaintiffs claimed that since 1987, residents along the North Tyger River had to leave their original habitable land due to Laidlaw’s pollution and lost the opportunity to enjoy a quality riverbank environment. This behavior essentially violated the environmental interests of the coastal residents. The US Supreme Court also affirmed this view in its ruling, stating that the landscape and living interests enjoyed by coastal residents in the riverbank environment should be legally protected, thus confirming the legitimacy of protecting environmental personality interests through legal precedents. The ruling expanded the interpretation of the damage consequences of environmental torts. Previously, the determination of damage consequences only focused on the violation of material personality interests, such as the right to life, the right to bodily integrity, and the right to health, while ignoring the violation of spiritual personality interests, such as the right to landscape and clean water. In fact, the aesthetic and landscape values of the environment are important components of individual and even human life, and they are the unity of individuality and entirety, which should be confirmed in judicial practice.

 

 

China’s judicial practice has also responded positively to the protection of environmental personality interests. In the case “Chen Jiahan v. Nanjing Rongcheng Property Management Co., Ltd.,” Chen Jiahan, a resident who lived on the first floor, frequently suffered from pollution caused by wastewater and fumes discharged by a nearby restaurant that had been rented out by the property management company. He filed a lawsuit against the property management company and the polluter, seeking compensation for the corresponding tort liability. The court held that a good living environment is an extension of the natural person’s right to life and health and therefore should be included in the scope of personality interest. The defendant’s polluting behavior damaged Chen’s living environment, infringed upon his environmental rights, and caused him serious mental distress, constituting an infringement of the plaintiff’s personality interests.²⁶ This case demonstrates that the protection mechanism of life and health protection and personal environmental interests is consistent. Environmental torts can be considered as an extension of the infringement on the right to health, even if they do not reach the level of bodily harm. In the absence of the formal establishment of environmental personality interests in Chinese law, the judicial authorities have confirmed the personality attributes of environmental interests involved in environmental disputes through a judicial activist approach. This not only plays the complementary and balancing role of judicial organs in the protection of personal environmental interests, but also protects the legitimate rights and interests of the plaintiff. It also provides a practical sample for the protection of environmental personality interests in China.

 

 

The Green Principle of the Civil Code, by legalizing high standards of environmental morality and ethics, enables the Civil Code to better embody environmental protection concepts and highlight ecological humanistic care. At the same time, the independent section of personality rights in the Civil Code is a response to the protection of human rights. In the context of increasing national attention to environmental human rights, the protection of environmental human rights should be reflected in personality rights. The core of environmental personality interests is to uphold an individual’s ecological interests in the environment. It is a legal reflection of humanity’s transition from industrial civilization to ecological civilization, which is consistent with the historical evolution of the Civil Code and human social development. It is not only an inherent requirement of human rights protection, but also a concrete manifestation of the application of the Green Principle, reflecting the systematic features of the application of the Civil Code. Therefore, leveraging the mature private law discourse system of the Civil Code and granting individuals the right to protect their own environmental interests can advance the involvement of environmental rights protection, solve the past problem of lagging environmental interest protection through government power, and promote the development of environmental human rights protection in depth.

 

The personality demands of environmental interests determine the necessity for a judicial response to personality rights. Human is the unity of nature and society, and human dignity and personal freedom should be reflected not only in their social attributes, but also in their natural attributes. In the past, the protection of personality rights focused on maintaining the subjectivity of individuals in social relationships, neglecting the manifestation of human dignity in the relationship between humans and nature. Therefore, it is necessary to expand the judicial interpretation of the concept of personality, affirm its duality of natural and social attributes, highlight the importance of ecological elements, and establish the legal status of environmental personality. The social attributes of humans are the main concern of modern society, while ecological attributes have long been overlooked. With the escalation of environmental problems, the importance of ecological attributes has gradually become apparent. In traditional civil law, personality rights refer to the subjectivity of individuals in social relationships as well as the rights and interests that they directly possess. During the agricultural civilization period, the level of productivity was relatively low, and the human ability to exploit natural resources was limited. Natural resources were considered infinite and inexhaustible for humans. At that time, the subjectivity of humans was mainly reflected in social attributes. As human society progressed into the industrial civilization era, the mechanization of production made previously abundant resources scarce. This led to environmental pollution and ecological destruction, causing a rapid deterioration of the ecological environment. At this point, it is necessary to expand the subjectivity of humans, affirm the ecological attributes of humans, and reflect the harmonious coexistence between humans and nature.²⁷ Without a livable natural environment, the subjectivity embedded in social relationships inevitably becomes weak and even meaningless. At this point, the state of human subjectivity is incomplete. The application of the Green Principle in the Civil Code in the section on personality rights is to reflect the value pursuit of diversified personality interests in the establishment of personality rights, while also placing certain limitations on individual rights and considering ecological interests as part of the scope of the exercise of rights. The ecological attribute of a natural person is also a form of ecological limitation, which is a process of ecologicalization under the premise of fully considering the resource allocation function of traditional private law. This new standard of humanity provides a solid foundation for the construction of environmental personality rights in the private law system.

 

 

In the General Provisions and the section on personality rights in China’s Civil Code, Article 110 and Article 990(1) respectively list the specific personality rights that are protected by law, and both end with the word “etc.” At the same time, Articles 109 and 990(2) respectively stipulate the general personality rights that civil subjects enjoy based on personal dignity and personal freedom. These provisions indicate that the scope of personality rights is not limited to the listed contents, and demonstrate the openness of the range of personality rights, leaving room for the protection of new types of personality interests in the future. On the other hand, they provide a bottom-line basis for the protection of personality rights by confirming general personality rights, reflecting the comprehensiveness of their protection.²⁸

 

Although the section on personality rights in the Civil Code does not directly regulate environmental personality interests, the openness of personality rights and the guiding principles of the Green Principle provide a pathway for including environmental interests within the civil legal protection system. With the increasing complexity of personal environmental infringement disputes and the growing demand for a better environment, environmental protection has become a matter of personal dignity and a value judgment standard. Therefore, on the one hand, personality rights can be given a green connotation and the types of personality rights can be expanded through system interpretation and expansive interpretation, in order to incorporate environmental personality interests into the scope of personality rights protection. On the other hand, general personality rights are constantly evolving and are open rights. In the current social and natural conditions where environmental problems are frequent, expanding the scope of general personality rights to include the relationship between humans and nature is a realistic approach to meeting society’s strong demand for ecological benefits. By interpreting general personality rights, protection of personal environmental interests can be achieved, especially the protection of environmental aesthetics, culture, history, and other spiritual interests. In areas where environmental personality interests overlap with specific personality rights, the specific personality rights provisions should be applied for protection, while reflecting the independent value of environmental personality interests within the necessary scope of protecting specific environmental personality rights. For example, when an environmental infringement causes material or physical harm to a person, the infringement violates both the person’s right to life and health and the environmental personality interests, creating a legal conflict. According to the principle of special law taking precedence over general law, the provisions protecting the right to life and health should be applied. At the same time, the relationship between environmental personality interests and the right to life and health under general personality rights provisions can be explained to highlight their spiritual value. General personality rights can be used as a general rule for protecting environmental personality interests, providing a safety net when specific personality rights cannot be applied, thus forming a multi-level protection system for environmental personality interests.²⁹

 

In the section on tort liability, Article 1164 of the Civil Code states that “this chapter regulates civil relationships arising from the infringement of civil rights and interests.” This provision also adopts an open-ended definition of “civil rights and interests,” which reserves space for the protection of new types of personality rights. Traditionally, the emphasis of the infringement of civil rights and interests is laid on material damage, and it is difficult for victims to obtain relief when environmental damage and pollution do not cause material damage to their lives and health. However, environmental personality interests, as a kind of personality interest that combines material and spiritual aspects, can be internalized into the semantic scope of “civil rights and interests” through an expanded interpretation, thus obtaining legal remedies for victims. Article 1235 in the tort liability chapter of the Civil Code lists five types of compensation liability for ecological damage, among which the fifth type, “reasonable expenses incurred in preventing the occurrence and expansion of damage,” provides an opportunity for the establishment of risk prevention liability. Traditional civil legal norms focus more on risk prevention and establish legal liability for eliminating risks and removing obstacles, but they neglect the risk liability of environmental damage. Environmental infringements have characteristics such as concealment and long-term effects, and the losses caused are much higher than those of general violations. Therefore, the description of “preventing the occurrence and expansion of damage” in this article should also be interpreted expansively, and risk liability should be included in the category of compensation liability for ecological damage to achieve proactive prevention of environmental risks.

 

 

The balance of an ecosystem not only produces ecological material value but also ecological spiritual value. Both of these values depend on the ecosystem and have been gradually recognized and discovered as environmental issues have become increasingly severe. Therefore, ecological damage actually constitutes a joint infringement of ecological material interests and spiritual interests. In response, the section on personality rights in the Civil Code elaborates on specific personality rights in the order of material personality rights, expressive personality rights, and spiritual personality rights, from chapters two to six Material personality rights are designed to safeguard the physical existence of natural persons, while spiritual personality rights reflect the spiritual life needs of natural persons. This indicates that the Civil Codeprotects not only personality interests in material terms, but also spiritual pleasure in the sense of personality. The famous “hierarchy of needs” theory proposed by Maslow states that “when people are only satisfied with basic material needs, their demands for spiritual personality rights such as privacy will be relatively few, and when their basic survival needs are met, the need for spiritual personality rights will become increasingly strong.”³⁰ This kind of need is reflected in higher demands for a good 

environment in the context of environmental protection. The diversity of ecological damage determines the multi-level nature of environmental personality interests. Material interests are the first level of interest needs. Environmental pollution can lead to personal injury, affecting the interests of life and health, and the material interests of environmental personality are mainly focused on protecting the integrity of a person’s physical functions. Spiritual interests are the second level of interest needs, based on protecting a person’s perception of a healthy, good, and comfortable environment.³¹ Indeed, environmental personality interests are the product of the typification of this kind of environmental interest.

 

Under the traditional perspective of environmental torts, harm to personality rights generally refers to the harm caused to natural persons’ personal and property rights by environmental pollution and ecological damage. To some extent, this harm refers to actual harm, namely, the first level harm to the environmental personality interests. Even if serious ecological damage has been caused, if it has not caused harm to a person’s body, life, health, or property, it is not possible to obtain tort liability relief based on personality rights. The second level harm to environmental personality interests refers to the damage to the comfort of the natural environment, which is a loss of the spiritual interests of human beings. Unlike the first level of environmental infringement damage, the harm to environmental personality interests is not based on the occurrence of material damage consequences. When the infringement behavior has a negative impact on the environmental quality, even if no actual harm consequences have occurred, as long as it seriously hinders the normal life of the parties involved and causes mental distress, it constitutes damage to environmental personality interests. Moreover, unlike the vague and non-quantitative standards of general mental damage, the judgment criteria for environmental personality interests are specific and clear.³² For example, in the rights to clean water and clean air, the quality of water and air can be monitored and evaluated through administrative and information technologies to determine whether the physical, chemical, and biological parameters meet the infringement standards. Human production activities inevitably have certain negative impacts on the surrounding environment. As long as these impacts do not exceed the necessary limits, the parties have a duty to tolerate them within this range. The judgment of this limit should take into account both individual interests and ecological interests. On the one hand, this production and life behavior should not cause harm or threats to the life and health rights of others, which is the basic bottom line for maintaining people’s normal production and life. On the other hand, this behavior should not exceed the carrying capacity and self-recovery ability of the environment, and should not cause damage to the overall function of the ecosystem. The two judgment standards exist in parallel and independently of each other. If the negative impact of production activities exceeds any one of the limits, it constitutes harm to the environment.³³

 

 

Environmental personality interests are a new type of right that has emerged with the development of modern human rights theory. It is not only a response to the construction of ecological civilization, but also an exploration of the reconstruction of the relationship between humans and nature, reflecting the new demand of civil subjects for the protection of personality interests. Based on this, a private law protection system for environmental personality interests should be constructed, starting from the innovative provisions of the Green Principles and the independent section of personality rights in the Civil Code. Since the existing legislation does not directly stipulate the relevant content of environmental personality interests, the protection for them can be expanded through the method of legal interpretation and continuously learn from judicial practice. Environmental personality interests are both individual and public, and in specific institutional design, individual interests and public interests should be taken into account, reflecting the unity of the dignity and value of individuals and human beings as a whole.

 

 (Translated by LI Donglin)

 

* ZHOU Ke ( 周珂 ), Professor at the School of Law, Hunan University. 

 

** JIANG Haojun ( 蒋昊君 ), Doctoral Student at the School of Law, Hunan University. This article is a staged research result of the major project of the MOE Humanities and Social Sciences Project Base, “Research on the Human Rights Value Connotation and Legal Guarantee in Xi Jinping’s Thought on Ecological Civilization” (Project Approval No. 21JJD820007), and the staged research result of the major project of the National Social Science Fund of China, “Research on Establishing and Improving the Property Rights System for Natural Resource Assets” (Project Approval No. 22ZDA109), aiming to study and interpret the spirit of the Sixth Plenary Session of the 19th CPC Central Committee.

 

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33. Ibid., 83.