环境公益诉讼旨在保护社会公共利益，普通公民、团体或国家机关为保护国家利益和社会公共利益均可提起。二十世纪至今，环境问题一直是世界关注的焦点。可以说，现代环境公益诉讼制度是人类对自身长期盲目追求工业化，漠视自然行为的反省和补偿。作为“现代型诉讼”中的一种，在世界范围内，美国环境公民诉讼制度算是个中翘楚，发展较为成熟。伴随着环境问题和环境保护运动，在美国国会、国内各级法院和法官的协力下，美国现代环境公民诉讼作为公益诉讼的重要分支，其理论和司法实践均得到了长足的发展。而诉讼中原告资格的认定则是其理论体系中最为重要的问题之一，在我国还没有形成统一的规范。虽然在2013年实行的新《中华人民共和国民事诉讼法》中已明确将环境公益诉讼纳入法条，但单一条文略显单薄，无论是制度还是理论层面上都存在大量空白，借鉴美国的先进制度，尤其梳理美国环境公民诉讼中原告资格理论和标准的发展，对于我国制度构建，是具有很强的研究价值。本论文主要采用的研究方法为法理分析法、比较研究法，以及文献综述法。　　本文第一章首先对美国环境公民诉讼做一般性考察，包括美国环境公民诉讼的概念、性质、特征和主要内容。在简要理清美国环境公民诉讼的逻辑前提之后，第二章重点对其制度下的原告资格的法理基础进行论述，包括私人检察总长理论和公共信托理论，同时介绍基于法理基础产生的原告资格理论萌芽。第三章从成文法与判例法两个角度对美国环境公民诉讼中原告资格中的“私益”精神分别进行研究,包括各主要环境法典有关规定，及其与美国宪法第三条的关系；从二十世纪六十年代开始美国在审判实践中的判例法发展。第四章是本论文的重点，结合前文论述，对美国环境公民诉讼原告资格的发展进行总结和思考，以理论初步形成期、发展成熟期、现代特征、未来发展趋势为线索，对其“三要件”标准进行论述，梳理规律与特点。第五章从法律规定和司法实践两个层面，结合我国与美国在国情和法律传统上的不同，从判断标准、防止滥诉的制度设计，以及完善公民个人与社会团体起诉制度等方面，探讨美国经验在我国的借鉴意义。作为“现代型诉讼”[ [日]小岛武司:《司法制度的历史与未来》，法律出版社2000年版。]之一，环境公益诉讼在西方发达国家的理论和实践中发展不过几十年，在我国尚属新鲜事物，希望本文能够对我国环境公益诉讼的发展和完善尽绵薄之力。

The environmental public litigation aims at protecting the public interest. Ordinary citizens, groups or a state organ to protect the state interests and public interests all can be filed. Since the 20th century, environmental problems has been the focus of world attention. As it were, the modern standing system of environmental public interest suits is the self-reflection and compensation of human beings for their blind pursuit of industrialization and ignorance of the natural for a long time. In the whole world, the development of the environmental civil lawsuit system in the United States is relatively mature. Along with the environmental problems and the environmental movement, the theory and judicial practice of the modern American environmental citizen suit, which is an important branch of modern environmental civil litigation for public interest litigation, have got rapid development.This paper mainly adopts research methods for legal analysis, comparative research, as well as the method of literature review. Before the opening, the author has read a lot of information about environmental public interest litigation both in China and in the United States, which has paved the way for the writing of this paper. The first chapter of this article describes the environmental civil litigation for general investigation. After figuring out the logic premise of environmental citizen suit in American, the second chapter focus on the system of plaintiff qualification, with "by the environmental civil lawsuit to the plaintiff qualifications limit, it can be seen that civil litigation has not completely break through the traditional civil action 'private interest sex", but by means of private interest litigation, to achieve the purpose of protecting the public interest "as the core, studying from two angles of statute law and case law of the environmental civil lawsuit plaintiff qualifications in the spirit of "private interest", respectively. The plaintiff sues qualification is the environmental civil lawsuit in the judicial practice and theory in the development of a core problem, which has experienced a complicated development process in the United States. The third chapter is the focus of this paper. Combined with the above, this chapter makes summary and dose some thinkings on the development of the environmental civil lawsuit plaintiff qualifications, finding its regularity and characteristics. As one of the "modern litigation", the theory and practice of environmental citizen suit have developed only for decades in the western developed countries, and is really something new in China, As a result, in the fourth chapter, combined with our country and the United States on the national conditions and the different legal tradition, mainly discusses American experience for reference in our country.