A Study On The Environmental Tort Liability Over Multinational Corporations

The role of Multinational corporations in the global economy has become increasingly significant.With the environmental standard in the developed countries raised,industrial restructuring and the transfer makes many environment-risky industries from developed countries shifted to the developing ones.In certain areas,Multinational corporations bring the spillover effects of environmental protection.However,at the same time, the evasion from being strict supervision of a host because of weak regulatory capacity also factually exists,and this brings many tortuous issues caused by environmental pollution or even catastrophic environmental accidents.China is a representative big one in the developing countries.Its economic development has drawn numerous multinational corporations'attention.The arrival of multinational firms is double-edged sword,and foreign investment adds vitality and momentum to the reformation and opening of our country,but also lays some hidden dangers of the environment.Recently,as is exposed in the media,the various multinational corporations'illegal sewage and drainage of toxic chemicals sounded the alarm to the government and its people.It is in this context that I try to do some comprehensive research and analysis over environmental tortuous issues caused by multinational forms,with a view to help to resolve the practical problems.This paper was started with the features of multinational corporations and the cause of environmental tortuous issues.It deeply analyzed the legal status and nature of the multinational corporations,and comprehensively the nature and source of the environmental tort liability.With tort theory, the environmental tort liability attribution principle and the elements composing the legal responsibility were studied.With the company law theory,the accountability mechanisms of both parent and subsidiary companies were analyzed.It gave a deep study on the problems of the plaintiff qualifications in the environmental infringement lawsuit with the help of the Civil Procedure Law theory,and also parsed the problems of environmental tort litigation and the courts on application of the applicable law in the environmental lawsuit related to multinational corporations according to the private international law theory.In conclusion,this article concluded on the lack of current legislation in environment tort liability over multinational corporations,and gave some corresponding legal measures from the aspects of entity and procedure.