Study On Chinese Regime Of Compensation For Oil Pollution Damage From Ships

With the development in large-scale vessel construction, China is becoming one of the largest maritime countries, accompanying major oil pollution accidents, which made China suffered great losses. Data by the authority predicted the petrol demand of China in B.C.2010 would attain the number of 3-3.5 hundred million ton, while 1.7 hundred million ton would be imported; and the tendency would increase in the future. The uneven distribution of oil resources and consuming decide that large importation of oil, while almost 90% of those imported oil depend on marine transport; which makes our coastal environment more sensible to the large oil pollution accidents. During the process of oil spill compensation, unsound legal system becomes the prominent problem. The great losses caused by ships oil pollution to marine ecological resources and fishery resources could not get complete compensation; as a result, the cost of removal could not be afford, the spilled oil retained, all of which leading to irretrievably loss. The basic reason is the unsound legal system, making the legal application in oil pollution not unified and ramified, thereby, oil spill compensation and other compensations sharing lower liability limitations. To afford full guarantees for compensation and develop removal works, protecting marine ecological environment, it is essential to enforce the research on the law of marine oil pollution compensation.Based on the characters referring to oil pollution accidents, which including the relative widely distribution, frequency ratio and the middle-small accidents, this paper compared the current legislation between the international and in domestic, and find out the legislative defectives. To correspond with the international oil compensation and to protect relevant profits, it is necessary to reconstruct the law during the perfection process, and build the compulsory liability assurance for the oil pollution. All of above contribute to release the burden of the related authorities. The final purpose of building right legislation system is to protect the benefits of the victims, lift consciousness of protecting marine environment, and encourage victims taking positive measures to reduce or even prevent the loss.