Social Sciences in China (Chinese Edition)

No. 3, 2024

The Binary Logic of the Compilation of the Ecological Environment Code and Its Unfolding

(Abstract)

Dou Xiaodong

The Ecological Environment Code, as a significant legal instrument for the evolution of ecological civilization, possesses both substantive and formal dimensions. First, it aims to serve the national ecological civilization strategy. Second, it elucidates potential pathways for legal interpretation, development of legal rules, and promotion of judicial governance, restraining arbitrariness and disorder while facilitating systematic cohesion. The compilation of the Ecological Environment Code can be carried out through means of substantive logic and formal logic. By prioritizing conservation, protection, and natural restoration in substance, resource management, pollution prevention, and ecological protection are coordinated, integrating legislation on ecological protection with natural resource management and pollution prevention to achieve both “avoidance of harm” and a “tendency to benefit.” Through the formal logical mainline of the relationship structure between power and rights, four types of norms are presented: ex post facto remedies, hazard prevention, risk prevention, and independent value selection.