Litigation powers of Chinese NGOs were recognized in 2012 by the amended Civil Procedure Law, which allowed "related organizations" to sue polluters, but courts often refuse to accept suits filed by NGOs because the provisions were vague. Specifying the requirements for NGOs to sue is one the more significant revisions in the new law.

More commonly, Chinese NGOs simply report violations to the authorities and let administrative mechanisms run their course, said Ge Feng, program coordinator of FON. "But it is government agencies who decide whether and how to sanction offenders," Ge said.

Wang Canfa of the China University of Political Science and Law who helped draw up the new laws expects to see a large number of environmental public interest cases in 2015.

Public interest litigation might also help cool the mass protests which have been increasing in recent years. These protests are generally staged by citizens who simply fear that their environment will be polluted, said Zhang Xiaoxi, of the China Mangrove Conservation Network.

Not a cure-all

The Mangrove Conservation Network is qualified to file suit under the revised law, but Zhang is worried about how the law will be enforced, even if it states that "courts should receive public interest litigation on environment issues".

Vice minister for the environment Pan Yue has broadly similar concerns. In a Monday interview with Xinhua, he said the new "powerful" law could still fail without ironclad enforcement.

Wang believes the biggest problem could lie with the courts and wants supervision to ensure that they really do accept and hear appropriate cases. Some courts might be reluctant for fear of getting into trouble, Wang said: "They may feel the defendants, probably polluting companies or government agencies, will be hard to deal with."

What's more, litigation costs could be an unbearable burden for grassroots NGOs, said Zhang. Her group works on a yearly budget of 800,000 yuan (about 125,000 U.S. dollars).

"Representing the public interest, we would be demanding huge amounts of compensation for victims. Correspondingly, the litigation costs and expenses will be colossal," Zhang said.

In 2011, FON became the first and only Chinese grassroots NGO to launch an environmental public interest lawsuit that was accepted by a court. The group demanded compensation from companies which dumped toxic chromium waste in southwest China's Yunnan Province. It almost goes without saying that the case has not been resolved. The court required FON to provide judicial identification of the specific damage the defendants caused and the group could not afford the millions of yuan involved.