A Study On The Claim Subject And The Remedy Of The Marine Environmental Pollution

China governs a vast sea area. Recent years, with the development of China’seconomy, the economic and trade exchanges with foreign countries is increasing, theoccurrence of marine environmental pollution cases have been increasing, it hasbrought great harm to the production and living of our marine environment andcoastal residents. According to “the marine environment of China in2012”issued bythe State Oceanic Administration on March20,2013, in2012, China’s marineenvironmental in general is good, but environmental issues like water pollution,ecological damage and disaster-prone are still serious. The damages to the ecologicalenvironment of the adjacent waters of the Bohai Bay oil spill accident and DalianXingang ‘716’oil spill pollution are still exist. In our coastal waters, the sea areawhere does not meet the water quality standards of the sea have increased13%thanthe average of the previous five years, the seawater quality worse than Grade IV ofthe coastal sea area increased54%than the last year.Bohai Bay oil spill occurred in2011and the Dalian Xingang "716" oil spilloccurred in2010are the two most serious marine environmental pollution accident inChina this years. The investigation process of these two incidents exposed some ofthe flaws of our current legal relief system of the subject of rights of the marineenvironment pollution damage. For example: in the Bohai Bay oil spill,ConocoPhillips only payed1billion yuan to the fisheries farmers who sufferedeconomic losses in Hebei and Liaoning to pay of compensation for their economiclosses, but as the same part of the Bohai Bay coastal, Shandong fishermen have notbeen compensated. In July last year, there are500fishermen in Shandong claimed toConocoPhillips to pay them870million yuan, but they haven’t been payed until now;in Dalian Xingang "716" oil spill, the clean-up costs should be claimed by theBureau of Dalian Maritime or their superior administrative authorities LiaoningMaritime Safety Administration, the law have no detailed provisions. Compare to theGulf oil spill occurred in the United States in2010, the process and results of thesetwo accidents exposed some defects of our legal relief system of the marine environment pollution. Compared to the United States, Our law on the scope of theclaim subject, determination of subject qualification, remedy and many otherprovisions, are relatively backward. China’s Marine Environmental Protection Lawwas revised in1999, it has been exercised a long time, so it could not meet therequirements of the development of the current era. In order to protect our marineenvironment better, guarantee the nation’s environmental interests and economicinterests, we should improve our law of the claim subject of marine environmentalpollution. So, which subjects can become the claim subject of the marine environmentfrom pollution damage? Who has the right to ask the person who is responsible to theaccident to pay for his losses? How the law could be remedy the marineenvironmental pollution? This article focused on these two issues, thinking on theclaim subject and the remedy of our existing legal system of marine environmentpollution, introduced the basic theory of pollution damage to the marine environmentand China’s current legal system, compared with the provisions of the internationaltreaties and the United States and other developed countries, identified the lack ofChina’s legal system, use the experience of the international treaties and othercountries for reference. On this basis, giving some suggestion to improve the claimsubject and the remedy of the marine environmental pollution legal system in China,to protect our marine environment and national interests better.