Compensation Proceedings In Oil Spill Incidents And Relief Victims: Taking The Hebei Spirit Oil Spill As An Illustration

The Hebei Spirit oil spill incident that occurred in2007produced large oil spill toYellow Sea. It is estimated that approximately10,900tons of crude oil were released fromcollision between crane barge and lead tug at Taean on the west coast of the Republic ofKorea1. As a result of the incident, the immense expenses concerning economic damages,natural resource damages, cleanup activities, compensation costs, and other obligationscame out. And in order to receive compensation, a lot of the victims collected evidence forclaiming compensation and filed a lawsuit to the court.Usually, in the oil spill incident like the Hebei Spirit oil spill incident, a lot of issuesand problems are raised. For example, in regard to the ship owner’s liability for the oil spillincident, compensation proceedings of catastrophic oil spill, and calculating damages fromoil spill etc. are raised. Especially, as for the limitation of ship owner, there are problemsthat the ship owner was negligent or not under the CLC and law when the oil spill incidentoccurs. And the problem that other subjects such as tug or crane barge have a liability tocompensation or not is raised too.And when it comes to the compensation proceedings for oil spill incident, becauseIOPC Funds requires complicate documents as a proofs of damage, many victims aresuffering from collecting evidence by themselves and filing a suit. In the case of the HebeiSpirit oil spill incident, many victims had difficulty in finding proofs because of lack of lawregarding it and complicated requirements of IOPC Funds. In addition to this, victims fromoil spill incident usually suffered from delay of ruling of court or low rate of the compensation.As for the question about psychological damage, generally it is difficult to be admittedas the damages from oil spill incident. It is because to calculate causation between thepsychological damage and oil spill incident is hard. Also, in the case of the fishery withoutgear’s damage, to submit documents that prove victim’s damages is difficult because thevictims don’t have any proofs such as work sheet or receipt usually. For these reason, theproblem related calculating damages is raised.In addition, in regard to compulsory insurance, victim’s right of direct claim to insurerhelps the victims from oil spill incident receive compensation. However, there is a problemabout acknowledging indemnity of the third party under the law.This paper aims to review the compensation proceedings in oil spill incidents andrelief victims by taking the case of Hebei Spirit oil spill incident in Korea. Especially, itreviews the law concerning oil pollution and compensation, and international conventionsuch as CLC. And it reviews provision of applicable laws and tries to find some limitationsor problems of the laws in the Hebei Spirit oil spill incident carefully. Also, in order to findthe improvements about problems, this paper suggests some directions by studying theproblem of law and comparing other oil spill incident cases or law of other countries.This paper is largely divided into seven parts: the Hebei Spirit oil spill incident and theQuestions raised there from, limitations of liability for oil spill incident, compensationproceedings for oil spill incident, calculation of damages for oil spill incident, compulsoryinsurance for rescuing victims from oil spill incident, improvements of the compensationsystem, and conclusions.