论公司社会责任的法律适用 - 以环境责任公益诉讼为研究视角 -

Abstract

The Judicial Application of Companies’ Social Responsibility - a Perspective from Public Interest Litigation of Environmental Responsibility - ＊ Southwest University of Political Science and Law, Chongqing, 400031 Zhao Wanyi＊ One of the most important legal obligations put to companies by the amendment of Company Law in 2005 is the social responsibilities to be undertaken by companies. An effective implement of the mandatory requirement is not only related to the execution of the law, but also to the authority of law. The environmental responsibility of companies is both an important part and a main form of their social responsibility. There is an urgent need in practice to realize the suability of environmental responsibility by designing an effective system. Such realization of the suability is also feasible in jurisprudence. Malignant events in which companies went against their environmental responsibility happened time and again. Such events revealed a lack of relevant system to urge the companies to fulfil their environmental responsibility. They also serve to prove the necessity to introduce environmental public interest litigations. This paper delimits the environmental responsibility undertaken by companies within the scope of the responsibility related to public interests, and it holds that the justifiability of Article 5 of ‘Company Law’ should be integrated with the system of public interest litigation by giving a broad-term explanation to Article 5. The companies’ environmental responsibility is defined as their obligation to maintain public environmental interests and their legal liability when infringing upon the interests. It is also suggested that social forces be mobilized to monitor the companies’ fulfilment of their social responsibility by expanding the range of qualified plaintiffs in the lawsuits concerning the social responsibilities of companies, which would accordingly help companies fulfill their environmental responsibility.