| Recent years, as the pollution and ecological damage worsened, our government had paid more and more attention on this issue, the citizens’ environmental awareness has improved, now the environmental laws have entered into a period of all-round and rapid development. As for the compensation for environmental damage which is an important part of dealing with such issues, the laws are not that perfect so that the functions of prevention and punishment in civil liability won’t work well. Citizens are not willing to ask help from the laws because of issues on civil compensation of environmental damage are not easy to place a case on file, and difficult to prove and high pain but less gain, and so on. So, if we bring in the punitive compensation system in our laws, on one hand it would frighten the ones who may break the laws, on the other hand it should encourage the victims to fight with the lawbreakers. And finally, it will help to the protection of environment.My thesis begins with the ConocoPhillips oil event. By comparing with the way other countries dealing with the same events, we could find the differences between them, not only in administrative penalty but also in civil compensation. We could find even though that our law system of environmental protection has its features, it is still necessary and available to bring in the punitive compensation system.Besides the ConocoPhillips oil event, I also talked about the history of punitive compensation system mainly in chapter 2. This system was written down long time ago in the Anglo-American Legal System and Continental Legal System. And it is widely accepted that the more systematical adaption began in The Britain. As we all know, the traditions of pragmatism and individualism exist in the Anglo-American Legal System,so that the punitive compensation system developed a lot in it. In the Continental Legal System, it developed slowly. There are two reasons, one is that the jurists are cautiousabout this system, the other is that the governors need the centralization of power, they do not want to give a wide discretion to the judges, so this system develops slowly. As the increase of the need of social governance, this system is used more and more. All in all, it becomes more and more useful.I have analyzed the feasibility and necessity of bringing in the system to our environmental law in chapter 3. I find out that the punitive compensation system has been used in the product infringement and other kinds of infringement, and produced some good social effects. So we can suggest maybe it will work well in the environmental law, too.In chapter 4, I described the current system of compensation on environmental damages compensatory system, which is fit to the basic principles of tort compensation but without taking the specificity of environmental damages into account. In consideration of the characteristics of environmental damages, the system of punitive compensation will meet the needs.In chapter 5, I discussed how to bring in the system. It shouldn’t be used totally in our laws but in specific range and under some strict conditions. I have given my opinions on its range, condition, the number of penalty and its distribution, and made some legislative suggestions. Because the punitive compensation may bring a big economic pressure for the polluters, so we should make some restrictive terms.Although the environment protection laws have encourage the polluters to have the damage insured and establish the fund system, but the insurance companies do not want to underwrite the risk, this measure can not work well. In the last chapter, I explored the ways of implement in detail and hoped that it will be brought in perfectly and be implemented well. |
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