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Introduction: Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is a specialized term in environmental science. As a branch of the environmental assessment system, it attracts considerable attention due to the forward-looking nature of its preventive legal framework. Tracing its origins, China’s environmental impact assessment system is itself a \"imported concept\". After more than 30 years of introduction, absorption, and development, China has established an environmental impact assessment system centered on the Environmental Impact Assessment Law. At present, our country is in a period with a high incidence of environmental risks, and environmental protection efforts continue to face significant challenges. Environmental impact assessment plays a key role in this context, and it is frequently criticized by the mass media. Whether viewed from a comparative law perspective or an substantive law perspective, China’s environmental impact assessment system still has shortcomings in its design, and the effectiveness of its operation also needs to be improved. In 2015, the first point raised in the inspection report issued by the central inspection team to the Ministry of Environmental Protection concerned the issue of starting construction without prior environmental impact assessment, which reflected the severity and prevalence of this problem. Equally criticized alongside construction without approval are issues such as chaotic management of evaluation agencies, employees holding multiple certificates, agencies borrowing certificates, and the problem of \"intermediaries with high-ranking titles\". The main participant in the EIA system—the construction entity—also has numerous grievances regarding the EIA process, primarily concerning its lengthy duration, high costs, and unreasonable pollution prevention and control measures. The environmental impact assessment system faces challenges regarding its effectiveness and even its necessity. 1 Analysis of the causes: Through an analysis of practical effects, it is easy to see that the underlying cause of the problems in the environmental impact assessment system is a deficiency in its functional positioning; the intermediate cause is an imbalance between rights and responsibilities resulting from that functional positioning; while the surface causes are various errors in the operation of the environmental impact assessment system. 1.1 Defects in the functional orientation: The current Environmental Impact Assessment law defines the primary function of this system as \"preventing adverse effects resulting from the implementation of planning and construction projects.\" It is undeniable that such a limited functional orientation has a negative impact on the scientific nature and effectiveness of the environmental impact assessment system. On one hand, it causes China’s environmental impact assessment system to focus solely on planning and construction projects, lacking comprehensive institutional arrangements ； On the other hand, it also leads to an \"administratively-driven\" model for the environmental impact assessment system, without establishing corresponding administrative responsibilities. 1.2 Imbalance between powers and responsibilities: In terms of the allocation of powers and responsibilities, China’s environmental impact assessment system exhibits a severe imbalance among four aspects: the powers of administrative authorities, the duties of EIA agencies, the rights of construction entities, and the rights of the public. There are many unreasonable aspects in the allocation of powers among administrative agencies. Due to historical reasons, environmental protection agencies hold a weak position within the administrative system; they often struggle to exercise their approval powers independently. In practice, these agencies, under the influence of the power of those they are meant to regulate, as well as various external pressures from departments at the same level or higher up, turn environmental impact assessments into mere formalities, with the procedures being focused more on form than substance. The environmental impact assessment agencies are, in principle, independent of the environmental protection administrative authorities, and have only a contractual relationship with the developers; however, in practice, they lack the conditions necessary to exercise their functions independently. On one hand, they are subject to the \"guidance\" of the competent authorities, and on the other hand, they are financially dependent on the developers. From an economic perspective, once environmental impact assessment becomes a legal requirement with no room for selective \"consumption\", and due to the absence of limited liability and punitive regulations, the need for environmental assessment agencies and enterprises to collude in fraud and engage in rent-seeking turns into a strong practical necessity. Regarding the EIA reports it issues, society inevitably harbors doubts; reports of “EIA fraud” have become quite common. As the decision-makers in a company’s economic activities and those who bear direct responsibility, corporate management is under pressure to maximize the company’s economic performance and shareholders’ wealth, with profit being the primary internal driving force. Moreover, the implementation of environmental impact assessment in enterprises is a dynamic game process, involving collective rational decision-making in a \"prisoner’s dilemma\" scenario among enterprises, as well as the phenomenon of smaller enterprises making delayed choices to free-ride. The procedural rights of the public (including social organizations) tend to be formalized in EIA activities, and no effective remedies are available. In the Environmental Impact Assessment Law, the rights and obligations of the public are weakened to varying degrees, leaving them powerless to address environmental infringements. What is most puzzling is that the Interim Measures for Public Participation in Environmental Impact Assessment provide relatively detailed regulations on all aspects of public participation, yet it fails to specify corresponding legal responsibilities. 1.3 Errors in the operation of the system 1.3.1 Insufficient judicial involvement Professor Chen Xinmin believes that the administrative permission for environmental impact assessment of construction projects constitutes a \"mixed\" administrative act. This administrative act is a beneficial administrative act for the administrative counterpart ； But for other neighboring parties, it constitutes an administrative burden, as they must endure the adverse environmental impacts. The existence of such a conflict of interest can easily give rise to disputes regarding administrative permits; if these disputes cannot be resolved properly, the parties involved may turn to judicial channels for resolution. Currently, there are no provisions in China regarding judicial remedy procedures for the environmental impact assessment system. In practice, there is still a tendency to overemphasize ** as the dominant force, with the environmental protection efforts being overly dominated by administrative measures. The Environmental Impact Assessment Law and a series of related laws and regulations serve largely as a basis for environmental management authorities to carry out their work; not many of them are actually enforced by judicial bodies. 1.3.2 Formalized public participation: China’s laws adopt a basic stance toward public participation that is to \"encourage participation in appropriate ways.\" The Interim Measures for Public Participation in Environmental Impact Assessment provide detailed technical provisions on this, but they are vague regarding the effectiveness of such participation and the institutional safeguards in place. In the decision-making process for construction projects with a significant impact on the environment, environmental administration authorities often adhere only to the minimum requirements that avoid violations, in an effort to improve administrative efficiency. Furthermore, in China, public participation is organized by the construction entity or an environmental impact assessment agency commissioned by it. This often results in a deliberate selection of participants or groups for such participation, while opposing or dissenting opinions are intentionally or unintentionally filtered out. As a result, public participation becomes a mere formality and fails to serve its intended purpose. 1.3.3 Absence of a public interest litigation mechanism Currently, environmental disputes in China are basically resolved through traditional litigation mechanisms; however, this only serves to settle disputes. However, due to the absence of stakeholders, the public interest in the environment often lacks necessary mechanisms for expressing such interests, which makes traditional litigation mechanisms inadequate to meet the demands of fairness and justice. To address the increasing number of environmental tort disputes, public interest litigation came into being. Recently, China has begun piloting public interest lawsuits for ecological environment and resource protection in certain areas, though specific details have not yet been established. At present, the main role of public interest litigation is to resolve environmental disputes and provide a convenient avenue for relief to victims of environmental pollution. Currently, it seems neither clearly designated nor intended to undertake the important task of judicial review over the operation of the environmental impact assessment system. 1.3.4 Poor implementation of EIA outcomes The effectiveness of an EIA largely depends on whether its outcomes—primarily various environmental protection measures—are actually implemented In practical operations, environmental protection agencies rely on departments such as those in charge of development and planning to handle the environmental impact assessment approvals for projects at the initial stage; however, they struggle to provide adequate supervision during the project’s construction and operation phases. As a result, it is often difficult to ensure that the environmental protection measures are actually implemented and that they are effective. The management period of environmental impact assessment is simply ended at the early stage of a project, with no accountability imposed on enterprises for pollution-related issues. As a result, there have been projects whose environmental impact assessment procedures were legal yet failed to meet environmental standards during operation; in this way, the environmental impact assessment becomes nothing more than a formality, giving society and the public the impression that such assessments are useless. The project owner focuses on obtaining approvals while neglecting implementation, and tries to cut corners wherever possible regarding the various environmental protection measures required in the environmental impact assessment. To be honest, given the extensive nature of environmental impact assessments, in addition to sections on total quantity control and environmental impact forecasting, it is often required to analyze and evaluate environmental issues related to water resources, soil and water conservation, forestry, geological safety, etc., which are under the responsibility of other departments. Although it appears to be comprehensive and scientific, it lacks specificity and focus; moreover, the proposed environmental measures are not entirely scientific, reasonable, or effective. However, even after taking these unreasonable measures into account, a large number of projects still fail to meet reasonable requirements such as phasing out outdated production capacity and upgrading old equipment that do not meet environmental standards. 2. Suggestions for Improving Effectiveness To enhance the effectiveness of the environmental impact assessment system, the following discusses this from the perspectives of legislation, law enforcement, and judicature. 2.1 Supervising administrative actions related to environmental impact assessment; incorporating provisions on environmental impact assessment into policy directives. (1) The legislative system dominated by administrative actions related to environmental impact assessment results in environmental legislation being initiated by administrative departments, with legislation being regarded as a means of achieving administrative control. This exacerbates the tendency for legislation to emphasize administrative dominance and the regulation of administrative counterparts; however, there is insufficient regulation regarding the conduct of administrative authorities themselves. This is not in line with the basic principles of public management, nor with the inherent laws of environmental protection; therefore, there is an urgent need to establish a \"law to regulate regulators.\" To this end, this paper suggests establishing a **Bureau for Monitoring and Assessing Environmental Quality**, in line with the recommendations put forward in the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ \"2015 China Sustainable Development Report – Reshaping the Environmental Governance System\". This bureau would be responsible not only for monitoring, assessing, and issuing early warnings regarding environmental quality, but also for overseeing administrative approvals related to environmental impact assessments, in accordance with the requirements associated with its early warning functions. ⑵With the introduction of policy-oriented chapters for environmental impact assessment, the objects of assessment under China’s Environmental Impact Assessment Law are primarily plans and construction projects; in recent years, several strategic environmental impact assessments have also been carried out. The new environmental law requires that environmental impacts be considered when formulating policies. From a technical perspective, it is not appropriate to introduce an environmental impact assessment system in current legislation. Although it is still too early for legislative impact assessments, policy impact assessments, especially of policy directives such as work plans and implementation rules, should be placed on the agenda as soon as possible. Because the technical aspects of the environmental impact assessment section under policy directives are generally similar to those of strategic and planning-based environmental impact assessments, yet regarding the overall local environmental impact, they can sometimes be even more direct than strategic or planning approaches, to the point where it may be difficult to reverse the effects. Given that the classified contents in the EIA section of policy directives are more extensive, this paper recommends that the aforementioned **evaluation department under the Ecological and Environmental Quality Monitoring and Evaluation Bureau** be tasked with carrying out this work. 2.2 Strengthening law enforcement: Theoretically, the effectiveness of laws depends not only on the severity of legal penalties but also on the reality and feasibility of enforcing those penalties. The legal framework for environmental impact assessment in our country is inadequate, and one of the main reasons for this is the insufficient enforcement powers and inadequate enforcement tools of environmental protection agencies. In essence, the environmental impact assessment system is a mechanism whereby the legislative body authorizes the executive branch to manage the public environment, while requiring that environmental interests be taken into account during the decision-making process. Supervising and controlling the administrative authorities’ licensing decisions regarding environmental impact assessments is primarily achieved through judicial remedies. On the one hand, authorized procuratorates can initiate public interest lawsuits against administrative decisions related to environmental impact assessments ； On the other hand, public participation in law enforcement can restore the legitimacy of the environmental impact assessment system to a certain extent. In addition to strengthening accountability for administrative approvals, penalties for construction units and environmental assessment agencies that violate the regulations must also be increased. The existing bad practices in the EIA industry, such as using others’ certificates and engaging in fraud, must be resolutely cracked down on; enforcement efforts should be intensified, and results should be made publicly available to the public on a regular basis ； At the same time, strictly investigate and punish enterprises that fail to implement environmental protection measures as required by the EIA, so as to ensure that the EIA yields its intended effects. It is worth noting that the construction entity has the obligation to submit an environmental impact report to the administrative department in charge of environmental protection, and it shall also bear responsibility for the quality of such submitted report. For those who submit unqualified environmental impact reports, the primary person held accountable by the environmental protection authorities should be the project developer, rather than the evaluation agency. If the EIA report is returned due to quality issues, the construction unit shall impose appropriate financial penalties on the evaluation unit in accordance with the contract provisions. 2.3 The emergence of judicial remedies Under the dual pressures of environmental risks and judicial reform, some provinces and cities established environmental courts, initiating attempts at judicial resolution of environmental disputes; these efforts have been widely recognized by society and academia. The Decision of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress on Authorizing the Supreme People’s Procuratorate to Carry Out Pilot Public Interest Litigation Initiatives in Certain Areas (July 1, 2015) also authorized the Supreme People’s Procuratorate to conduct such pilot initiatives in 13 provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities directly under the Central Government, and required that people’s courts handle the public interest litigation cases filed by the procuratorate in accordance with the law. It is recommended that public interest litigation in environmental protection pay more attention to the operation of the environmental impact assessment system. The scope of public interest litigation related to the ecological environment carried out by the Supreme People’s Procuratorate should be expanded nationwide as soon as possible, and local people’s procuratorates should also be granted the authority to initiate such litigation. Furthermore, the role of the public and environmental protection groups is crucial, although their goals in filing lawsuits can only be achieved through the judicial enforcement power of the courts. In this sense, more local environmental courts should be established. 2.4 Other specific recommendations 2.4.1 Strengthen public participation in supervision. China’s laws and regulations only stipulate that public participation is intended to seek opinions from relevant organizations, experts, and the public on draft environmental impact reports, but they do not specify the details, which results in uneven quality of public participation and even turns it into a mere formality. The Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and Environment has established a Centre for Public Participation, which provides guidance and advice on public participation in planning and environmental impact assessments for projects. It is recommended that the evaluation department under the Ecological and Environmental Quality Monitoring and Evaluation Bureau assume the responsibilities of guiding and supervising public participation. To prevent arbitrariness and randomness in public participation efforts and to ensure the effectiveness of participation by various stakeholders in activities such as opinion gathering, analysis, and adoption, it is recommended to promptly revise the Interim Measures for Public Participation under the Environmental Impact Assessment Law. Additionally, relevant technical guidelines for public participation should be formulated to further specify and improve the timing and procedures for public involvement in strategic environmental assessments. This will ensure timely engagement, enabling the public to obtain accurate information, offer better perspectives and more solutions, strengthen communication with the public, and encourage stakeholders to support the plans/strategies. Furthermore, due to a lack of expertise in environmental protection, the public’s ability to participate in environmental efforts needs to be improved. Environmental education should be promoted widely, the concept of public participation should be vigorously advocated, and publicity efforts should be intensified through various media such as Weibo and WeChat. Pilot projects should be carried out to draw lessons from them, thereby raising public awareness and capacity for participation and facilitating a shift from passive to active participation by the public. 2.4.2 Detailed classification of EIA content: Germany’s EIA process consists of various report documents, including the Environmental Compatibility Study Report (UVU), the Environmental Impact Assessment Report (Gutachten), the Landscape Conservation Planning (LBP), and the Survey of Fauna, Flora, and Habitats (FFH). Different types of projects require different reports. UVU is used for industrial pollution-related projects, while LBP and FFH are used for projects with ecological impacts. 14 This may seem complicated, but in reality it highlights the key points and is more targeted. In contrast, the content of environmental impact assessments in our country is currently too complex; it is appropriate to streamline the tasks associated with such assessments and remove those environmental issues that fall under the responsibility of other departments, such as water resources, soil and water conservation, forestry, and geological safety. Optimize the technical guidelines for environmental impact assessment of various factors, develop industry-specific technical guidelines, highlight the key aspects of environmental impact assessment for each industry, and enhance their relevance. Furthermore, **no detailed rules have been issued to regulate the section on public participation in environmental impact assessment documents. The current common practice is to add a chapter to the environmental impact assessment that provides a statistical analysis of the public consultation efforts carried out by the project developer. Since the environmental impact assessment is prepared by an environmental assessment agency, the inclusion of a section on public consultation in the assessment document leads the public to mistakenly believe that the agency is also responsible for these consultation activities. Once there are flaws in the work of the public authorities, environmental assessment agencies become targets of criticism from the public and the media. To clarify responsibilities and authorities, it is recommended to optimize the public participation plan. The chapter on public participation should be removed from the EIA document. In accordance with the principle that the construction entity bears primary responsibility for public participation, the project entity shall carry out public participation activities during the EIA process, ensuring their authenticity, representativeness, and typicality. These efforts should then be submitted to the competent administrative authorities together with the EIA document. 2.4.3 Post-environmental impact assessment Post-environmental impact assessment, simply put, is an environmental assessment conducted after the implementation of construction projects, plans, programs, policies, and laws. Post-evaluation of environmental impacts is a continuation of the EIA process. Its purpose is to verify the accuracy of the EIA and the effectiveness of mitigation measures, as well as to identify ways for improvement. The United States has also established post-evaluation of environmental impacts. Through this post-evaluation, it is possible to assess and improve the scientific nature and effectiveness of environmental impact assessments, to monitor and ensure that the agencies responsible for conducting these assessments fulfill their duties properly, and to guarantee the quality of the environmental impact assessments and related reports. The current Environmental Impact Assessment Law specifies the circumstances under which post-assessment is required, but despite the law having been in effect for over a decade, China has yet to issue any national guidelines, technical standards, or regulations regarding post-assessment. Post-evaluation management and technical requirements vary from place to place; in some cases, it has even become a mere formality for projects constructed without prior approval—essentially allowing them to “get on the train first and buy tickets later”—failing to fulfill its intended purpose. To this end, this paper recommends that the conditions for preparing post-evaluations be clarified as soon as possible, and that management requirements, technical guidelines, or standards for post-evaluations be established. 2.4.4 Technical Assessment for Environmental Impact Assessment: The technical assessment for environmental impact assessment refers to an independent evaluation activity carried out specifically to provide technical oversight for the approval process of environmental impact assessments. It is an integral part of the environmental impact assessment system and constitutes a fundamental element in that approval process, offering a basis for making scientific decisions regarding such approvals. The evaluation agencies should be guided to conduct in-depth and thorough research on fundamental technical issues related to environmental impact assessment, such as the reliability of prediction models and the effectiveness of environmental protection measures. Based on the findings of this research, standardized requirements for environmental impact assessment reports can be established, along with a simple and effective set of technical methods. This will help to reduce repetitive tasks in the environmental impact assessment process, lower the costs associated with such assessments as well as the pressure on enterprises, and enhance the relevance and rationality of these assessments. Establish discretionary standards for environmental impact assessment administrative approvals to meet the technical requirements for environmental protection consulting in the early stages of projects. South Korea established, through legislation, an independent technical assessment agency for environmental impact assessments – the Korea Environment Institute – thereby legally affirming the role of technical assessment in environmental impact evaluations, with a focus on reviewing documents related to such assessments. The technical assessment agency is under the Ministry of the Environment, but it is also accountable to the Office of the Prime Minister. 15 At present, the agencies in China responsible for providing technical advice on environmental impact assessment reports are the **Ministry of Environmental Protection and the local environmental engineering assessment centers (consulting centers). China’s Environmental Impact Assessment Law does not stipulate legally the status, responsibilities, and obligations of such agencies, which results in a lack of authority in the technical reviews conducted. Therefore, it is recommended that environmental engineering assessment centers at all levels in our country be placed under the **Bureau for Monitoring and Assessment of Ecological and Environmental Quality, to ensure vertical management and thus maintain the independence and seriousness of technical assessments. Furthermore, an important working mechanism in environmental impact assessment is the expert review system. Experts do not represent **, but the technical evaluations they conduct on environmental impact assessments serve as an important basis for **approving projects. In reality, conducting technical reviews of projects by experts often has the following drawbacks: First, when carrying out such technical reviews, for reasons of financial interest or personal relationships, some experts may consider factors other than those related to the project when reaching their conclusions, which prevents the objectivity of the technical review results for a given project. Secondly, it seems reasonable that experts be held accountable for the results of technical reviews, **or that environmental management agencies be responsible for project approval decisions. In practice, however, this often leads to unclear responsibilities, especially when a project that has been approved is found to be environmentally unsound, in which case the responsibility is shifted onto the experts. A large amount of environmental impact data accumulated from environmental impact assessments and post-assessments should be collected, and a big data-based platform for environmental impact assessment consultations should be established, transitioning the approach to environmental impact assessment review from one based on expert evaluation to one that relies primarily on big data platforms with expert review serving as a supplementary mechanism. 3 Conclusion The precautionary principle is a summary of human experience in taking decisive actions in response to uncertain environmental crises, while the environmental assessment system represents a framework for preventing and controlling environmental disasters. China’s more than three decades of practice in environmental impact assessment under the rule of law have led to the current environmental impact assessment system. To enhance the effectiveness of this system, this paper puts forward the following recommendations based on analysis: (1) At the legislative level: Following the suggestions in the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ \"2015 China Sustainable Development Report – Reshaping the Environmental Governance System\", a **Bureau for Environmental Quality Monitoring and Assessment** should be established to oversee administrative licensing decisions related to environmental impact assessments ； The scope of application of the environmental impact assessment system should be expanded, requiring that policy directives with an impact on the environment (including work plans, implementation details, etc.) include an environmental impact assessment section. (2) In terms of law enforcement, accountability for administrative approvals related to environmental impact assessments should be strengthened, and greater penalties should be imposed on construction units and environmental impact assessment agencies that violate the relevant regulations. It should be clear that in the case of submitted environmental impact reports that do not meet the requirements, the primary party held accountable by the environmental protection authorities should be the project developer, rather than the evaluation agency. (3) In terms of the judiciary, it is recommended that the Supreme People’s Procuratorate expand the scope of public interest litigation related to the ecological environment across the whole country as soon as possible, and grant local people’s procuratorates the authority to carry out such litigation as well. Encourage more localities to establish environmental protection courts. ⑷It is recommended that the evaluation departments under the **Bureau for Monitoring and Assessment of Ecological and Environmental Quality assume the responsibilities for guiding and supervising public participation, revise the Interim Measures for Public Participation in Environmental Impact Assessment, and issue technical guidelines related to public participation. ⑸At present, the content of environmental impact assessments in our country is overly complex; it is appropriate to streamline the tasks related to these assessments and remove those environmental issues that fall under the responsibility of other departments, such as water resources, soil and water conservation, forestry, and geological safety. Specify more detailed requirements for environmental impact assessment content, optimize the technical guidelines for environmental impact assessment of various elements, and develop industry-specific technical guidelines to highlight the key aspects of environmental impact assessment for each industry. To clarify responsibilities, it is recommended to establish unified regulations at the **level: the environmental impact assessment document should omit the section on public participation. The project owner shall carry out public participation activities during the environmental impact assessment process to ensure their authenticity, representativeness, and typicality, and submit these activities along with the environmental impact assessment document. ⑹Clarify the criteria for preparing post-evaluations as soon as possible, and issue management requirements, technical guidelines, or standards for post-evaluations. ⑺It is recommended that evaluation centers at all levels in our country be placed under the **Bureau for Ecological and Environmental Quality Monitoring and Evaluation**, to ensure vertical management and thus maintain the independence and seriousness of technical evaluations. Evaluation agencies should be encouraged to conduct in-depth and thorough research on fundamental technical issues such as the reliability of prediction models and the effectiveness of environmental protection measures, so as to establish discretionary standards for environmental impact assessment approvals and meet the technical requirements for environmental consulting during the early stages of projects. A large amount of environmental impact data accumulated from environmental impact assessments and post-assessments should be collected, and a big data-based platform for environmental impact assessment consultations should be established, shifting the approach to environmental impact assessment review from one based on expert evaluation to one that relies primarily on big data with expert review serving as a supplementary element.