In Depth: China Drafts Debut Legislation for Public Interest Litigation

China is introducing new legislation that will enable more effective prosecution of public interest cases, ranging from environmental pollution and food safety to data-privacy violations.

The move follows a decade-long experiment that put prosecutors at the forefront. But lacking dedicated legislation, they relied on scattered provisions in existing laws, which both limited their efficiency and at times caused them to overstep their mandate, inadvertently encouraging the government agencies that should be responsible to take no action.