Researches On The System Of Punitive Damages In Environmental Torts

With the development of modern science and technology, people'sdemand for environmental quality is enhanced, but the industrial society ofhigh energy consumption, high pollution has brought serious damage to theenvironment. And it has serious influence to people's life and propertysafety. How to construct the legal system in order to solve the increasinglyserious environmental tort problem has been an important issue incontemporary environmental legal system.Based on the analysis of the particularity of environmental tort,environmental tort has the quality of unequal party, wide involving andserious social harm. There should be an effective legal regulation on theenvironment infringement. In this paper, by means of the case study, weresearched the traditional methods of legal regulation in environmental tortissues. We found that the existing legal regulations had certain defects. Themain performance is that the distinction between public and private law hasled to the legal vacuum on legislation. Public law means were limited to the principle of power should work under the law. It cannot timely, effectivelyand flexibly to play a role of punishment in environmental torts. As themeans of relief in civil law, compensatory cannot achieve the goal to be aneffective protection of vulnerable side, thus unable to achieve the essencejustice.In this paper, by the methods of history and comparative research, westudied the system of punitive damages, and found that the system ofpunitive damages worked by the implementation of punitive damages andeffectively made up gaps caused by the distinction between public law andcivil law legal. And people were given the rights to punish maliciousinfringers through legal ways. It has an very important practicalsignificance to make effective punishment on environmental torts, and it isworth of studying for our environment law.