With the development of society and economy as well as intensively increase of anthropogenic activities, soil ecosystems are susceptible to various pollutants. Soil contamination has become a serious problem in China,which threatens not only human health but also imposes serious threat on the safety of plants, animals and microorganisms. The relevant ecological risks and ecological security problem cannot be ignored. However, risk management and control for soil pollution concentrates narrowly on human health at present and there is less attention to ecosystem safety in our country. For example, there is still lack of specific technique guideline for ecological risk assessment of pollutant in soil and no soil environment quality standard based on ecological risk. Accurate assessment of ecotoxicological effect caused by soil pollution is an important basis for benchmarking soil environmental quality. Meanwhile, it is also significant foundation for assessing ecological risk, realizing ecological risk early warning as well as conducting ecological risk management and control. In this paper, we discussed key problems in ecotoxicological effect assessment of soil pollution, focusing on characteristics of ecotoxicological effect, assessment approaches, assessment endpoints, construction of exposure-effect relationships, extrapolation of ecotoxicological effect, ecotoxicological effect assessment at community level, and ecotoxicological effect assessment of combined pollutants in soil. On such basis, key perspectives concerning ecotoxicological effect assessment of polutant in soil were addressed. Currently, ecotoxicological effect assessment mainly focuses on acute toxicity of pollutants to single species, using indicators at individual and sub-individual level as assessment endpoints. There is still lack of applicable approaches which could quantitatively assess ecotoxicological effect of pollutant in soil at community or ecosystem level. Quantitative assessment of ecotoxicological effect of pollutant in soil, especially combined pollutants, on soil biota at community or ecosystem level is the key and difficult scientific problem. Future studies should focus on three aspects:1) screening of applicable and sensitive assessment endpoints at community or ecosystem level, 2) identification of environmental factors affecting the ecotoxicological effect caused by pollutants in soil and elucidating the associated impact mechanism, and 3) establishment of quantitative approaches assessing joint toxicity of combined pollutants in soil and eclucidating uncertainties. The aim of this review was to provide theoretical base for accurate assessment of real ecotoxicological effect and ecological risk of pollutants in contaminated sites, as well as provide scientific and technological support for establishment of guideline or technology specification for soil environment protection, such as ecological risk assessment.