On The Environmental Legal Liabilities Of Transnational Corporation

In the course of the fast development of the world economy due to the globalization, two phenomena arouse the great interest of the society: one is the rapid growth of the transnational corporations. The transnational corporations are exerting greater influence on the world economy than ever before. They expedite the internationalization of the production and the capital, and promote the advancement and the transfer of technology. They enlarge the scale of the international trade and investment and at the same time earn themselves a high speed of development. And the other phenomenon is the fact that the problem of environment is getting increasingly grave. Human beings are going short of the resources, the living conditions are getting worse, and the global environmental crisis is putting a threat on the human survival. The excessive exploitation of human beings on the resources is the reason for the crises. And the transnational corporations, which are the most important economy entities, should also be responsible for the environmental problems caused by their economic practice. The immense production scale of the transnational corporations enables them to cause more damage on the environment, if they do not take proper protective measures. Besides that, the developing countries may take less strict environmental standards out of the purpose of attracting more foreign investment to develop the national economy, and this offers the transnational corporations a chance to bear less responsibilities for environmental protection and at the same time earn more profit.To get a clear connotation of the environmental legal liabilities, the article tries to tell the differences between it and the environmental liabilities, pointing out that environmental legal liabilities is more authoritative and imperative than environmental liabilities. Viewed from an economic point, due to the shortcomings of the present economic system in the fields of value analyzing and measuring standard of the national economy, the environmental legal liabilities of economic entities have long been neglected. And the natures of non-exclusiveness, non-competitiveness and the openness of the environment result in the value of the products which does not include the sacrifice of the environment, and this should be overcome through legal and economic measures.The liability-ascertaining principles need to be established to hold transnational corporations responsible. The article discusses the Fault Liability Principle, the No-fault Liability Principle, Risk Liability Principle and Interest-balancing Principle. The above four principles collectively constitute a unique system of environmental legal liability. The environmental legal liability can be prescribed by the civil law, the criminal law and the administrative law. But there are great difficulties to make the transnational corporations actually shoulder the responsibilities due to the different environmental standards of different countries, the priority given to the economic development by the developing countries and the defects in the relative international law system.In order to fully seek the compensation for the damage caused by the environmental tort, which is the result of the transnational corporations'economic practice, the victims may decide to go to the court of the country of the parent company. But the principal of Forum Non Convenience is sometimes used to refuse the victims'quest. The article questions the fairness of this principle and considers that it is not helpful for the effective litigation of the transnational corporations'environmental liabilities and is not helpful for the protection of the global environment.While discussing the importance of the roles of the countries and the laws in the protection of the environment, attentions should also be paid to the function of the environmental non-governmental organizations. They have the characters as follows: they provide public goods in terms of environmental protection; they are equipped with strong environmental expertise; they have the competence of linking the people of all kinds of life. All of these enable them to make a great contribution on the movement of the global environmental protection.At last, this article makes some pieces of advice out of the reality of our countries: perfecting the implementing regulation of the relating principle of piercing the corporate veil of the company law; improving the environmental insurance system; enhancing the theoretical construction of the environmental standard; making full use of the industrial policies in guiding the foreign investment; and putting an emphasis on the reform of the environmental administrative department with more authorities being granted. Through these measures, the article tries to find a way in which the goal of economic development can be achieved in harmony with the environmental protection.