Study On Legal System Of Environmental Liability Insurance

In the resent times the complex relationship between human activities and theenvironment has become a major public concern, raising issues of legal, political andeconomic relevance. In China, given the rapid development in economic area recentlyyears, the explosion of the environmental pollution incidents is coming near or ishappening.Against such backdrop, this paper focuses upon the new way, which is called in othercountries “Environmental Liability Insurance” or “Pollution liability Insurance”, toreduce and manage the environmental risk which otherwise will be turned into theenvironmental damage one day. In particular, according to the Insurability Theory andthe allocating the liability governed by Tort law, the analysis concentrates on issuesrelated to the environmental pollution risk rather than the both kinds ofenvironment-related risks (the environmental pollution risk and the naturalcatastrophe risks), which is labeled by an OECD report that this paper used as themajor first-hand resource.By making comparison between United States and China based in the law andregulation along with practice in insurance industry, there is something in American Environmental Liability Insurance either in the legal history or in the insuranceindustry can be learned by China in regulating the environmental risks.As a conclusion, this paper suggests that, while private insurance may not beconsidered as a straightforward and ready-to-use solution to the complex problemsposed by the “environmental pollution risk”, it certainly has the potentials to play adecisive role in this field and, therefore, it should be regarded by governments andpolicy makers as a key instrument in the available array of risk management tools.