环境公益诉讼是解决环境公益纠纷、保护环境的一种重要途径。受传统诉权和当事人适格理论的影响,我国民事诉讼法和行政诉讼法在原告起诉资格上,均采直接利害关系人原则,这种理论和立法将环境公共利益排除在司法保护之外。但是我国司法实务中却存在有关环境公益诉讼的规范性文件和案例,这些规范性文件和案例虽具有个别性和偶然性,但仔细研究这些规范性文件和案例,可以发现环境公益诉讼在实务中存在的问题,而这些问题是推进环境公益诉讼在我国立法上确立必须要解决的。全文共分为四个部分。第一部分介绍环境公益诉讼的相关概念、特点和基本类型以及国外环境公益诉讼的基本情况；第二部分介绍我国环境公益诉讼相关实践，包括地方关于环境公益诉讼机构设置和制度规定、关于环境公益诉讼的审判实践以及环境公益诉讼的相关案例及分析；第三部分分析我国环境公益诉讼制度的缺失及原因；第四部分提出关于环境公益诉讼的制度构想，包括构建环境公益诉讼的必要性、政治和舆论支持以及环境公益诉讼的原告资格、受案范围、诉讼标的、起诉条件、诉讼性质、惩罚性赔偿等具体制度构想。

Environmental public-interest litigation is an important approach to the settlement of environmental disputes and protection of the environment. As affected by the conventional right of action and theory of standing to sue, both the Code of Civil Law and the Law of Executive Accusation of China adopt the principle of direct common interests when addressing the standing to sue. Such theory and legislation excludes environmental public interests from judicial protection. Nevertheless, regulatory documents and cases of environmental public-interest litigation do exist in the judicial practices in China. Despite their individuality and occasionally, a scrutiny into such regulatory documents and cases could reveal problems of environmental public-interest litigation, which have to be solved in order to consolidate the legislative foundation of such litigation.This thesis consists of four parts. The first part introduces concepts, characters, and basic categories of environmental public-interest litigation, as well as the fundamental state of such litigation abroad. The second part presents practices of environmental public-interest litigation in China, including institutional arrangement, rules and regulations, judicial practices, cases and their study associated with environmental public-interest litigation at local levels. The third part analyzes the absence of the environmental public-interest litigation system in Chin as well as the causes of such absence. The forth part puts forward an institutional vision on environmental public-interest litigation, including specific institutional propositions, such as the necessity of construction of an environmental public-interest litigation system, political and public support, standing to sue, scope of case acceptance, object of action, actionable condition, characters of lawsuit, and punitive damages.