Study On Legal Problems Of Compensation For Environmental Totr

Since the reform and opening up, China’s economy has developed rapidly andsocial productivity has great risen. Along with the industrialization and modernizationof society, China’s environmental tort issues have become increasingly prominent, butthe formation of environmental tort compensation system in China has not completed.In the face of the modern environmental tort, which has characteristics of frequentoccurrence, extensive influence, serious harm, complex relationship, China’senvironmental tort compensation system which derived from the general theory of tortexposed many shortcomings. It is difficult to effectively relieve victims ofenvironmental torts and harmful to reduce and prevent the occurrence of theenvironmental tort.The shortcomings of our current environmental tort compensation system mainlydisplays in narrow and vague compensation range, single compensation principle,blank compensation system of socialization etc. Vague compensation range canprobably make the local judicial practice not be uniform, cause social injustice inlegal form, and be detrimental to authority for the judgment of the court; on the otherhand, China’s current environment tort compensation range is narrow on the wholeand focuses on the traditional tort compensation scope for personal and propertydamages. The development of contemporary environmental tort theory has shown thatenvironmental tort damage is far more than the above two aspects, the personal andproperty damage compensation are inadequate to environmental tort victims. China’senvironmental tort compensation apply homogeneous compensation principle, buthomogeneous compensation can not deal with various problems which the maliciousenvironmental tort brings, for instance homogeneous compensation lacks of warningand deterrent effect on malicious environmental tort, it also can not be a good remedyof environmental tort victims. In China’s current environment tort compensationsystem, lacking of the socialization of environmental compensation system is anothermajor problem, which greatly restricted the function of environmental tortcompensation system.After conducting a lot of work in data collection and research, this article tries to draw lessons from foreign advanced legislation experience and optimize domestic andinternational environment damage compensation theory and then try to improve ourcountry’s environmental tort compensation system after considering the reality inChina. By analyzing and comparing many domestic and foreign theoretical andlegislative achievements on the basis of explaining environmental tort characteristicsby giving some examples, this article puts forward some good proposals for the majordeficiencies of our country environmental tort compensation legislation. Theproposals mainly consist of clearing environmental tort compensation scope,introducing the punitive compensation principle and establishing the socialization ofenvironmental compensation system which conforms to our country’s conditions.The author holds the opinion that the traditional compensation scope has beendifficult to adapt to the contemporary environmental tort development in theory andpractice by researching and analyzing environmental tort compensation system in theadvanced western countries, so new compensation types beyond personal andproperty damages must be produced. Besides personal injury and property damages,this paper puts emphasis on mental damage and environmental damage, it points thatsetting mental damage free from personal injury damage is necessary In order toincrease mental damage suitable space; at the same time, based on demonstration ofthe rationality of the existence of environmental right, this paper points that it isnecessary to develop environmental damage compensation which can build bridgesbetween the system of private law and the environmental protection. For the weaknessof homogeneous compensation in malicious environmental tort, the author thinks thatit is feasible to introduce the punitive compensation principle as supplement tohomogeneous compensation principle. Applying punitive compensation principle tomalicious environmental infringers can impose them enough punishment, thus it playsa law to this kind of behavior deterrent and warning function, reduces and preventsthe occurrence of malicious environment tort. On how to improve China’senvironmental tort compensation system of socialization, this article puts emphasis onthe environmental liability insurance system, financial guarantee system,environmental damage compensation fund system. From the angle of environmentaltort victims, social system is more conducive to compensate victims timely andcomprehensively. From the angle of environmental infringers, the main characteristicof environmental liability insurance system is risk diversification, by transformingrisk from point to plane, it can reduce destructive force to single enterprise caused by large compensation for environmental tort; the main characteristic of financialguarantee system is rush cushion, by transforming rush from time point to time slot, itcan weaken the influence to the enterprise caused by environmental tort hugecompensation. Environmental damage compensation fund system can be used ascomplement to the above two systems to provide ultimate relief for the environmentaltort victim.This article puts forward some suggestions to improve our environmental tortcompensation system from the traditional tort compensation system and thesocialization of environmental compensation system, in the hope of benefiting theformation of our country’s environmental tort compensation system.