The Economic Analysis Of Laws About Liability And Compensation For Maritime Oil Pollution Caused By Ships

This paper, mainly aiming at three respects, which is through the economic analysis of oil pollution liability and compensation for its damage, is to confirm that whether there are some defaults in china's law related. It is important to lower the risk of oil spill cases at first, then to reduce the pollution damage caused by that and finally to search more efficient mechanism in guaranteeing victims' benefit.Tools and theories of law and economics play a key role in this paper. Based on reality, the first distinguishing characteristic of the oil pollution case being pointed out is: Though the risk of oil pollution damage is out of the victims' control, which theoretically leads a preference to strict liability rule being put on injurers, there is time lag effect in the damage that it is not ultimately shaped once it happens caused by oil spills. The defense should be added to the strict liability rule because both victims and the injurer can take necessary actions to reduce the pollution damage. The second character is that the damage is usually far beyond the injurer's asset and ability to compensate especially in serious oil spill accident. And this brings the demand in liability rules for deterrence affection on injurers in order to internalize the whole cost caused by their actions. Also this demands the explanation in economics about the paradox that in real world a financial cap on injurers exists comparing the full compensation supported by theories, which may influence the economic efficiency. This character needs more economic explanation on the compulsory insurance and other alternative financial systems such as compensation fund too. Crash cases are concerned by this paper not only for the reason that there are kinds of arguments in this area but also the complexity of this problem makes a challenge to the author's interest. Some meaningful conclusions will be constructed.We may be disappointed by the difference between the theoretical analysis and the real world law system about this oil spill case. There is some advantage about liability rules in china's articles compared to international conventions but not in detail nor clearly. And this follows the different interpretation by the Chinese courts. Moreover, some features of the international regime, such as compulsory insurance and an additional layer of compensation via a fund are missing in China. This reality can not be resulted from the fact that serious oil spill cases never happen in China by now. The point is whether we are ready to confront with them.An economic analysis of oil pollution liability and compensation for the damage helps us with better grasping its nature and knowing related clauses. Moreover, integrated with the comparison by international conventions and domestic laws, we attain more meaningful conclusions in the three respects mentioned at the start.