Study Of Cross-border Investment In Environmental Liability

The complexity of environmental problems has a decisive effect that environmental protection could not merely rely on a certain country' s controlling methods, the occurrence of environmental problems could not merely owe to a certain country' negligence. Actually, along with the further development of economic globalization, environmental problems embody obvious tendency to internationalization. The environmental pollution produced by international investment sets a good example in this respect. The negative influence of international trade on environment, in my opinion, is less serious than international investment, because exteriority of trade stems from exteriority of investment, stipulation on international investment is an effective means to solve international disputes and protect environment. Hence it is important and imperative to do some research on environmental liabilities related to international investment. This paper contains five parts, about 36,500 words except prefix and summary.The fist part of this paper gives a general statement about environmental legal liabilities in transnational investment. Starting from the different effects on environment between international trade and international investment, this paper takes the transnational investment as the original conduct, which puts a detrimental effect on the environment. In view that scholars always use environmental liabilities and environmental legal liabilities simultaneously and in discriminatively when discussing environmental legal liabilities, this paper attempts to present a totally new cognition to the two concepts from a different perspective, points out that environmental legal liabilities is more authoritive and imperative than environmental liabilities, environmental legal liabilities contains the following special characteristics as transnationalization, comprehension, ethics,techno-logicality, and diversity between reality and ideality.The second part depicts doctrinal basis of environmental legal liabilities in transnational investment. Because of the ethics, techno-logicality, and diversity between reality and ideality, construction of the systems of environmental legal liabilities is becoming more important, and is crucial to seek the fundamentally doctrinal theories to explain why environmental legal liabilities in transnational investment is therefore studied. The doctrines addressed herein includes the social liability of enterprises equity principle sustainable development principle and ecological contract, implicate that environmental problems are not the mere obligations on countries accepting investment, but also the liability on transnational investors and countries providing investment.The third part emphasizes the liability-ascertaining principles, on the basis of characteristics of environmental damages resulting from transnational investment, states the dilemma situation confronted with the Fault Liability Principle, dialectic comprehension on 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 Fault Liability Principle is fundamental and still exerts it special legal effect in many areas; the No-fault Liability Principle represents a developing direction, expanding it implementing scope instead of the Fault Liability at most of time; Risk Liability is complementary, and Interest-balancing Principle is primary, not only taking the leading role in implementing the above three principles, but also becoming the necessary prerequisite for judgment.The fourth part is about four different environmental legal liabilities in transnational investment. In order to present an efficient and sufficient relief on the aggrieved party and to realizea perfect protection on our environment, apart from transnational investors' liabilities, nation' s liability > international compensation liability and international criminal liability should be concerned.The fifth part put forw...