The Study On Civil Liability Of Environmental Torts

At present, with the fast development of industrialization and urbanization in our country, the economical level and living standard has been promoted greatly. In2010, the economic aggregate of China has taken the second position in the world. But, due to the excessively depending on the resource consumption and large-scale investment, the absence of government functions, and the imperfection of our legal system, our country also faces increasingly serious problems of environmental pollution and ecological destruction concurrently, such as the water-break of200,000citizens in jiangsu yancheng because of the disqualification of the water, the illness of the citizens broke out in chifeng after the drinking of the water, the exceeding standard of blood lead of the children in hunan wugang due to the enterprise pollution, the heavy metal contamination in the places of shanxi fengxiang,hunan liuyang etc., and the most severe incident of marine ecological destruction, namely the kangfei accident of oil leakage, and so on. All the incidents of environmental pollution and ecological destruction mentioned above deeply pull the heart strings of the public of china. Where is the crux? Till when can people live in a livable environment. Although our country has formed a basic environmental law system which including certain entity laws such as the general principles of civil law, and certain procedure laws, but compared to the advanced theories and practices of environmental laws in other countries, the environmental laws in China are filled with problems, and can not smoothly regulate the severe issues of environmental pollution. Even in "the law of tort and liability" which enacted in2009, there are no articles providing for the ecological destructions, or for the punitive compensations for environmental tort, not even for the compensation system of socialization. Whereas the circumstances mentioned above, this author deems that it is extremely significant about the legislation of environmental damage compensation law. On the one hand, it could solve the unbearable environmental problem. on the other hand, it could provide to our offspring the blue sky, the green hills, the clean water and so on. Through the study of legal periodical and monograph on environmental tort both in and out of China, by referring to the treatment of damage compensation on the kangfei incident of oil-leaking, and by comparing the status quo of the study on environmental tort theories in our country, this paper expatiates the deficiency in liability attribution, causality cognizance, missing of socialization compensation, and missing of relevant legislation, and appeals to the utmost the legislation of "environmental damage compensation law". It is highly important to the improvement of environmental legal system, and to the restriction of the increasingly serious environmental pollution and ecological disruption.With respect to research methods, this paper studies the civil liability of environmental tort using the legal method of comparing and induction. In this paper, the author, takes the conventional legal concept as logic beginning, explores deeply into the intension and extension of the environmental tort, indicates the deficiency which existing in the various environmental problems, and gives some suggestions for the improvement thereof. Our legal system, compared to that in foreign countries, needs to be ameliorated imminently in the fields of liability attribution principles, causal relationship cognizance, socialization compensation system, and so on.This paper can be divided into four parts.The first part, expounds the concept and traits of environmental tort, compares the different opinions of legal scholars and finds out the differentiations and connections thereof. At the same time, the author expresses his own opinion on this subject, and gives his own definition thereon. By expatiating the characteristics of environmental tort, the author proposes that it is necessary to introduce the concept of ecological destruction into the law, so as to redress the imbalance of legislation in terms of the environmental pollution and the ecological destruction.The second part analyzes the evolvement of the attribution principles of environmental tort, compares the principles in China with that in other countries, and digs out the shortage of attribution principles in judicial practice.The third part discusses the constitutive factors of the liability of environmental tort, and believes that there are three constitutive factors in environmental infringement, that is, the tort, harm fact, and the causality between them. And it analyzes comprehensively why the infraction of law should not be taken as one of the factors, and thereby achieves the conclusion that the liability of environmental tort is different from that of traditional.The fourth part, through the expounding of the notorious kangfei accident, finds out the crux of the problems of environmental tort liability, and on the basis of which, brings forward some suggestions for the improvement thereof. In order to adapt to the increasingly serious problems of environment, the author deems that there should be no delay on the legislation of environmental infringement compensation law.