China’s Top Court Releases Marine Environment Protection Cases
China’s Supreme People’s Court (SPC) has released six typical cases on marine ecological environment judicial protection, one day before the country’s landmark Ecological Environment Code takes effect on August 15, 2026. The release, reported by Xinhua News, showcases maritime courts’ role in safeguarding national maritime rights, protecting marine ecosystems, and advancing green, low-carbon development.
The cases span ship pollution, land-based pollution, marine nature reserve development controls, rare aquatic species protection in exclusive economic zones, and marine ecological environment public interest litigation. They reflect three defining characteristics: land-sea integrated systematic governance, strict ecological red lines with rigid constraints, and collaborative multi-stakeholder governance approaches.
The Ecological Environment Code Takes Effect
The release comes as China’s Ecological Environment Code prepares to take effect. Passed by the 14th National People’s Congress on March 12, 2026, the Code is China’s second law named as a “Code” after the Civil Code, consisting of five parts and 1,242 articles totaling over 160,000 characters. It consolidates provisions from more than 30 existing environmental laws into a unified framework.
According to CCTV News, the SPC stated that the Code’s promulgation “provides solid institutional guarantees and clear legal guidance for maritime trials to practice the concept of marine ecological civilization with Chinese characteristics, safeguard national maritime rights and interests and ecological security, ensure orderly development and utilization of marine resources, and promote the building of a maritime community with a shared future.”
Landmark Case: First Combined Marine-Atmospheric Pollution Compensation
The first case is China’s first combined marine and atmospheric ecological environment damage compensation case. In November 2018, the chemical tanker “Tian Tong 1” leaked approximately 69.1 tons of C9 (carbon nine) into the sea during dock operations in Quangang District, Quanzhou, Fujian Province, due to improper operations by both ship and shore parties. A petrochemical company colluded with the ship’s bareboat charterer to falsely report only 6.91 tons leaked, delaying emergency response. Pollution spread to 13 square kilometers of sea area and also caused atmospheric pollution from volatile organic compounds.
The Xiamen Maritime Court confirmed for the first time in judicial rulings that atmospheric environmental damage, marine environmental capacity loss, and service function loss during marine ecosystem recovery are all within compensation scope. The CCTV Ocean Channel previously reported on this case’s final judgment in January 2023, noting that the court ordered the ship owner and bareboat charterer to pay over 13 million yuan in joint liability.
The SPC noted that those who conceal information lose limitation rights for expanded losses: “The ship and shore parties unified their statements and concealed the accident situation. If liability for the expanded losses caused by this concealment were also limited, it would not conform to the legislative purpose of the maritime liability limitation system.”
Protecting Ecological Red Lines
Case 2 involved the Guangzhou Maritime Court ruling that a development agreement for construction within the Huidong Sea Turtle National Nature Reserve was invalid because it lacked environmental impact assessment, nature reserve approval, and sea area use permits. The court ordered removal of large concrete structures that had occupied the protected area’s tidal flats.
“This judgment not only demolished large concrete structures that had long occupied the protected area’s tidal flats, but also sent a clear signal to society that ecological protection red lines cannot be crossed,” the SPC said.
In Case 6, the Ningbo Maritime Court exercised jurisdiction over crimes committed in China’s exclusive economic zone, sentencing 19 defendants for illegally harvesting red coral—a national first-class protected wild animal. The total weight of red coral involved was 64,818.12 grams, valued at 25.9 million yuan. Sentences ranged from 9 months to 12.5 years imprisonment.
Innovative Compensation Mechanisms
The cases also demonstrate innovative approaches to ecological compensation. In Case 4, the Guangzhou Maritime Court faced defendants with no executable assets. The court explored a regional linkage mechanism where a company with river dredging qualifications could fulfill compensation through “off-site restoration”—clearing over 8,000 cubic meters of river sediment and planting 1,500 trees.
Case 5 introduced a novel mechanism: the Nanjing Maritime Court confirmed an ecological damage compensation agreement and supported using “coastal salt marsh blue carbon trading” instead of traditional cash compensation. This is described as the largest single salt marsh judicial blue carbon transaction in China, demonstrating the restorative justice concept advocated by the Ecological Environment Code.
Implications for Environmental Governance
The strategic timing of this release—one day before the Code takes effect—signals that China’s judiciary is prepared to implement the new legal framework. As Guangming Daily reported, the courts will continue to apply the Ecological Environment Code comprehensively and accurately to improve the quality and efficiency of marine ecological environment judicial protection.
The 21st Century Business Herald noted that the Code’s implementation is expected to drive green industry upgrades while compelling enterprises to accelerate environmental compliance. The cases released today provide concrete guidance for how maritime courts will handle environmental violations under the new legal framework.
What to Watch For
As the Ecological Environment Code takes effect, observers will be watching how the judicial innovations demonstrated in these cases—particularly the expansion of compensable environmental damages, the use of blue carbon trading for ecological restoration, and the assertion of jurisdiction over exclusive economic zone crimes—are applied in future cases. The cases also signal China’s broader strategy of strengthening environmental rule of law through codification and asserting maritime sovereignty through judicial means.
For context on the 2018 Quangang incident that underpins the first case, the Wikipedia article provides additional background on the event’s public health impacts and the controversy surrounding the initial underreporting of the leak.