Studies On Environmental Joint Tort Liability

The environmental joint tort liability is a kind of liability in which two or more infringers have jointly polluted or impaired the environment, thereby doing damage to other people's personal rights and interests, proprietary rights and environmental rights or causing latent damages to them and the infringers should take the relevant civil liabilities respectively. Liable parties are multiple, the damages cannot be set apart and the torts are connected in an environmental joint tort liability, so an environmental joint tort involves complex tortfeasors and may exert a tremendous influence on the society. Therefore, it is very important to construct a relevant legal system to realize the social stability and the economy's sustainable development.It is a key issue to differentiate the liabilities among environmental joint tortfeasors and identify the causality. The doctrine of liability fixation of civil torts is the foundation of the environmental joint tort liability. This paper proposes a pluralistic system of liability fixation, in which the equitable liability doctrine should be applied in the environmental joint tort liability to keep interest equilibrium among the aggrieved parts and the infringers instead of the simplistic and outdated one, namely, the principle of no-fault liability. There are two means of liability-carrying in the environmental joint tort: compensating for economic losses and excluding harms. In addition, Partial Injunction and Replace Injunction should also be applied to equalize the relevant interests. The joint liability system has been adopted in China, but it is imperfect. So this paper proposes the principle of pro rata distribution should be used as a supplement. When the environmental joint tortfeasors can not be identified, the joint hazard liability can be used as a remedy.There don't exist clear rules about the doctrines of liability fixation of environmental joint tort liability and the causality identifications in the actual civil law, so the same judge may make different adjudications. Therefore, the legal system of environmental joint tort liability needs perfecting; some improving suggestions are supplied from substantive law and procedural law, aiming to remedy the flaws of the actual environmental laws in China. This paper proposes that the doctrine of liability fixation of environmental joint tort liability should be made clear in China, a pluralistic system of liability fixation should be set up, the limitation of action should be prolonged, and the means of excluding environmental harms should be enriched in...