Cross-border Environmental Damage Liability System

Today's international community frequent occurrence of transboundary harm to the environment and cause serious damage to persons or property. However, many of the activities causing the loss of both, including Iraq set fire to Kuwaiti oil fields , including the peaceful use of nuclear energy, offshore oil transportation and other dangerous activities. For the protection of the environment, and full fill the environmental damage, liability rules need to be clarified .The chapter one first defines the concept of transboundary environmental damage ; Secondly, introduce the traditional international responsibility and liability regime of transboundary environmental damage which included three kinds of responsibility-state responsibility,state liability and international civil liability .Chapter two Discusses State responsibility. Begin with the codification of the state accountability system as a clue by the the Commission of International Law. Secondly, discusses the base of the state responsibility for transboundary harm."No-Harm Principle"is the fundamental principle in the customary international law concerning transboundary environmental damage.Finally, sum up the practice of states in the field of international judicial and legislative practice .Chapter three discusses the liability of state. The concept arise out from the topic"International Liability for the Injurious Consequences of Acts Not Prohibited by International Law"of ILC. But it remains a difficult and controversial one. both from theory and practice of state liability does not support this theory.Chapter four introduced the new development in this field."Draft Principles on the Allocation of Loss in the case of transboundary Harm Arising Out of Hazardous Activities"broke the development difficulty of the state liability .The draft bring in the loss allocation as the main methods to deal with the problems of transboundary damages arising out of hazardous activities.The final chapter is concluding remarks.First,state liability is a kind of state responsibility .At a theoretical level, it is not clear that the conceptual basis on which it is distinguished from State responsibility is either sound or necessary. On the other hand, at a more practical level, it is questionable whether it represents a useful basis for codification and development of existing law and practice relating to environmental harm, the field in which the Commission has mainly located the topic. Second, summing up the practice of state responsibility and the tendency of international civil liability, it is the loss allocation methods is well in tune with the emerging thinking on the subject.