The International Liability For Transboundary Environmental Damage

At present, environmental damage has become a grave concern in which the transboundary environmental damage is the sign of the internationalizing of environmental problems. Songhua River pollution incident as well as other pollution incidents alarmed us that more seriou environmental damage will follow by. Who is supposed to be responsible for such environmental damages ? what kind of responsibility shoud be taken? How much responsibility is supposed to to take? The issues above are the major ones to be solved in transboudary environmental damage. Afer a comprehensive consideration of the current status of of international legislation and the academic focus, this article describes the international legal liability of transboundary environmental damage in the following aspects.In the first part, the definitions of relevant concepts of international legal responsibility on transboundary environmental damage are given. This article starts from the the definition of relevant treaty and gives the definition of transboundary. It starts from defining some relevant cross-order environmental damage, set clearly the targets, introduces the basic principles of international legal responsibility in cross-oder environmental damage and studies the topic under the basic princinples.The second part of this article analyzes the structure of transboundary environmental damage. The international legal responsibility of the cross-order environmental damage is analyzed on the basis of the subject of responsibility , subjective elements and objective elements to carry out analysis. Better awareness of the cross-order environmental damage is gained after analyzing gradually. Certain difficulty may exist in defining the legal responsibiloty of cross-order environmental damage; solutions can be brought up to tackle the premise as perfectly as possible against corresponding difficuties: things like the nature of the international legal responsibility of cross-order environmental damage are clearly defined.The third part of this article puts forwards the distribution of environmental damage responsibility after discussing the constitution and nature of the international legal responsibility of transboundary environmental damages . transboundary environmental damage caused privately appeared in the case of privatization of the responsibility of transboundary environmental damages which also introduces new subject in cross-order environmental damages. This part mainly discusses the basic liability ideas on being right or wrong as well as the distribution of relevant environmental damages between the State and the individual.The fourth part describes the exemption from environmental damage liability and analyzes the circumstances under which the subject can be exempted from the international legal liability on transboundary environmental damages such as general exemption and special exemption .This article discusses the international legal liability for transboundary environmental damages. The definition of transboundary environmental damages, the scope of environmental damages , the range of international legal liability and distribution principles are under in-depth discussion. Although most laws in transboundary environmental damage liability have limited binding ability , discussing the issues above broaden our minds, helps us find out our weak points and perfect the international environmental legal system .