Abstract:

Water emission rights trading（WERT）is an environmental policy to control water pollution by economic means，
which helps coordinate economic development with environmental protection. Pilot WERT has been carried on in China since
1980s and resulted in some successful effects including a series of supporting legal systems related to WERT at both state and
local level. However，problems still exist in China’s current legal system of WERT: emission right is not established；laws and
regulations related to WERT remain imperfect；supervision mechanism of WERT is unsound，which constrain the development
of WERT market in China. In order to promote the healthy and orderly development of China’s WERT market，the authors put
forward four suggestions on improving China’s WERT legal system: establishing emission rights in legal form，formulating
the regulation of WERT management，improving the system of overall control，and establishing a supervision mechanism of
WERT.

Key words: environmental protection, pollutants, emission rights, water emission rights trading, system of overall control