On Legal Regime Of Compensation For HNS Pollution Damage From Ships

Since marine environmental pollution has seriously affected human beings’ exploitation and utilization of the ocean, the tendency of the international community use private law to adjust legal issues after the occurrence of the pollution becomes obvious. As compared with marine oil pollution which is familiar to people, the emergency response measures and pollution damage of hazardous and noxious substances (HNS) are less familiar to the general public. The international convention concerned has not entered into force. China does not have any particular law on marine pollution damage compensation, let alone legislation on HNS pollution damage compensation. The lack of legislation has caused lots of disputes in judicial practices. Based on the theories of legal philosophy, legal economics and environment protection law, comprehensively applying comparative analysis approach and empirical analysis approach, this paper makes systematic and in-depth analysis of the basic theories and constitutional elements of the legal regime of compensation for HNS pollution damage from ships to be established in China. At the same time, combining with the China’s existing situations and legislative practice, this paper puts forward proposals on the framework and contents of the legal regime of compensation for HNS pollution damage from ships.This dissertation includes five chapters and an appendix. Chapter 1 studies the basic theories of the legal system of compensation for HNS pollution damage from ships. It studies the legal philosophy of the legal system of compensation for HNS pollution damage from ships from the perspective of marine environmental protection legislation. It analyses the effects of the legal philosophy on marine environmental protection legislation from the perspective of epistemology, axiology and ontology. It also explains the suitability of application of law and economics in the analysis of legislation of pollution damage compensation and its application in the domain of basis of liability, risk allocation mechanism, liability allocation mechanism aand limitation of liability for compensation. Chapter 2 studies the international legislation on compensation for HNS pollution damage from ships and its development tendency. Chapter 3 analyses the differences among several countries’legislations regarding the compensation for HNS pollution damage from ships and their enlightenment to China. Chapter 4 puts forward the necessity, legislation idea and legislation model for China’s legislation on compensation for HNS pollution damage from ships based on the analysis of the status quo of China’s legislation. Chapter 5 studies the establishment of China’s legal system of compensation for HNS pollution damage from ships including the basis of liability, limitation of liability and the related guarantee systems. Finally, the appendix to this dissertation puts forward a proposed draft provisions on HNS pollution compensation to be contained in the revised Chinese Maritime Code.