On Liability For Damage To Transboundary River

Transboundary water resources’ security is gradually becoming a regional issue, even a global issue. Water resources is increasingly scarce, especially those that are transboundary. They have the potential to cause tensions and conflicts between countries. Therefore, with the purpose of preventing such tensions and conflicts, it is important to deal with the competing interests between interstates which are sharing transboundary water recourses, and environmental requirements are took into account in the meantime. To solve this issue, we need to establish the more and more perfected system of laws and regulations, to set up responsibility system and legal frameworks through interstate cooperation.Rapid economic development in border areas between China and its neighboring countries has already put serious stress on available transbountary water resources. For example, Heilongjiang, called Amur River by Russia, is the longest transboundary watercourse around the world. It has played an important role in bilateral cooperation between China and Russia, including all kinds of water utilization and ecosystem protection. However, the closer cooperation relationship between China and Russia has experienced ups and downs, particularly the cooperation in transboundary water resources in recent years. Afterwards, there are more possibilities to have cross-border disputes between China and its neighboring countries. Those are the reasons why we are researching the international compensation liability of transboundary environmental damage and establishing Chinese system of laws and regulations.This paper is constituted by four parts. First part analyzes the connotation of transboundary river damage through several key phrases, such as “transboundary”, “transboundary river”, “damage”, “transboundary damage”. Moreover, this part also introduces the characteristics of transboundary river damage. Second part elaborates the traditional compensation liability regime of transboundary river damage, as well as its constitutive requirements and solution approaches. Third part introduces the imperfections of the traditional compensation liability regime of transboundary river damage. Fourth part illustrates three representative judicial practices of compensation liability regime of transboundary river damage, including water pollution accident of the Rhine River, Gabcīkovo-Nagymaros Project Case(The Hungarian v Slovakia), and major environmental pollution accident of the Songhua River.