China Issues First Judicial Interpretation for Ecological Environment Code

China’s Supreme People’s Court has released the first supporting judicial interpretation for the Ecological Environment Code, providing courts with detailed rules on how to apply the landmark environmental law when it takes effect on August 15. The Xinhua News Agency reported that the “Provisions on the Application of the Ecological Environment Code Regarding Temporal Effectiveness” consists of 13 articles and will take effect simultaneously with the Code itself.

A Landmark Legal Framework

The Ecological Environment Code, passed by the 14th National People’s Congress on March 12, 2026, is China’s second law named as a “Code” after the Civil Code. It is also the world’s first code named after “ecological environment,” according to China News Service. The Code contains five parts with 1,242 articles, covering general provisions, pollution prevention, ecological protection, green low-carbon development, and legal liability. It incorporates 10 existing environmental laws through compilation and revision, including the Environmental Protection Law, Environmental Impact Assessment Law, and laws on air, water, soil, solid waste, noise, and radioactive pollution prevention.

Establishing Temporal Application Rules

Supreme People’s Court Vice President Yang Linping announced the judicial interpretation at a press conference on August 6. The regulations establish a general standard for applying the Code’s provisions based on when the legal facts that caused an environmental case occurred. Legal facts occurring before the Code’s implementation should, in principle, be adjudicated under the law and judicial interpretations in effect at that time, while legal facts occurring after implementation should be adjudicated under the Code’s provisions.

The interpretation strictly follows the principle of non-retroactivity and the exception for favorable retroactivity as stipulated in Article 104 of the Legislation Law, as China Daily reported.

Comprehensive Review of Environmental Legal Instruments

To ensure the Code’s full and effective implementation, the Supreme People’s Court conducted a comprehensive review of environmental legal instruments, examining 26 judicial interpretations, 35 judicial normative documents, and 45 guiding cases. After the review, 26 judicial interpretations remain applicable (27 including the new one), along with 34 judicial normative documents and 41 guiding cases.

The review also included substantive amendments to judicial interpretations concerning marine environmental protection. Since the 18th CPC National Congress, national courts have handled more than 3,100 marine environmental cases and concluded 348 marine environmental public interest litigation cases, according to the Guangming Daily.

Implementation Preparations Underway

The Ministry of Ecology and Environment has been preparing for the Code’s implementation by reviewing more than 500 subordinate documents, including over 30 administrative regulations, 80 departmental rules, and 400 normative documents. The Ministry has identified more than 70 supporting documents that need to be created or revised. As Zhao Ke, Director of the Ministry’s Department of Regulations and Standards, noted at a July 28 press conference, ecological environment departments at all levels have been instructed to apply the Code’s provisions from August 15 and stop implementing provisions inconsistent with the Code.

Expert Perspectives on the Code’s Significance

Legal scholars have highlighted the Code’s innovative “moderate codification” approach, which absorbs and abolishes some existing laws while retaining others in parallel. Professor Yu Wenxuan, Vice Dean of the School of Civil, Commercial and Economic Law at China University of Political Science and Law, explained in an interview with Beijing Time that before the Code, China had more than 30 environmental protection laws that suffered from weak systematization, content duplication, gaps, and even contradictions. The Code addresses these issues by shifting from single-element protection to systematic ecosystem protection.

Qin Tianbao, Director of the Environmental Law Research Institute at Wuhan University, noted that the compilation marks China’s ecological environment governance moving from scattered legislation toward a systematic, modernized new stage, as documented by the National People’s Congress website.

What to Watch For

As the Code and its supporting judicial interpretation take effect on August 15—which also marks National Ecology Day—courts across China will begin applying the new framework to environmental cases. The Supreme People’s Court has pledged to guide courts at all levels in correctly applying the Code’s systems for environmental public interest litigation, injunction preservation measures, and ecological restoration. The Ministry of Ecology and Environment continues its cleanup of subordinate documents to ensure alignment with the Code’s requirements, with the transition period likely to reveal how effectively China’s new environmental legal framework operates in practice.