The Research On Legal Issues Of Environmental Liability Insurance

Since reform and opening up, the Chinese economy has taken off. Along with the rapideconomic growth and steady improvement of people’s living standards in China, variousincreasingly serious environmental problems have been presented. In particularly, the hazeproblem, which has attracted worldwide attention, has seriously endangered people’s healthand undermined social harmony and stability. The haze area in China has continued to expandand swept over100cities in more than20provinces, especially the northeast China, Beijing,Tianjin, Hebei province, the Yangtze River Delta area, the Zhouzhou Triangle Area and theYangtze River Valley area which are severely afflicted. With the increasing aggravation of thehaze problem, environmental pollution contradictions have been gradually highlighted.Therefore, the environmental liability insurance re-appears in the visual field of people,bringing hope to the overburdened ecological environment. The direct involvement of theenvironmental liability insurance into the accidental aftercare compensation can effectivelyimprove the compensation ability of tort or damage offenders, thus ensuring that victims canget compensation relief timely. Moreover, the environmental liability insurance can alsoensure that various relief funds are provided timely after environmental pollution accidents,so that immediate measures can be taken to prevent further losses.Actively exploring, developing and implementing the environment liability insurancesystem is an important channel to protect property interests and personal interests of victimsof environmental pollution, a favorable tool to guarantee the survival and development ofenterprises, and also a supporting tool to promote enterprises to strengthen their awareness ofenvironmental protection and pollution control, and prevent and reduce environmentaldamage. Because of this, environmentalists, insurance practitioners and lots of experts havebeen devoted to studying and discussing the environmental liability insurance system ofChina and developing measures and putting forward suggestions for developing andimproving the system.Compared with China, Western countries made an early start in the implementation ofenvironmental liability insurance, and have accumulated rich experience and developed mature systems in the field of environmental liability insurance. Environmental liabilityinsurance develops into an important tool for Western countries to deal with environmentaldamage compensations. Although developing countries made a late state in theimplementation of environmental liability insurance, they have also gained greatachievements through active explorations in recent years. With various practices in the fieldof environmental liability insurance, developed and developing countries can providevaluable experience and reference to China.In recent years, the development road of the environmental liability insurance in Chinahas not been smooth. It is gratifying that the newly revised “Environmental Protection Law”was formally implemented in2015and clearly stated the development of environmentalliability insurance for the first time. Although only principle regulations are put forward in the“Environmental Protection Law”, the “Environmental Protection Law” shows thedetermination of China to unswervingly promote environmental liability insurance and marksa new start of explorations and innovations for environmental liability insurance. At thepresent stage, it is quite urgent for China to improve the legal system of environmentalliability insurance, to make preparations for the comprehensive promotion of pilot work. Thisthesis falls into following four parts.The first part is the introduction part of this thesis. In this paper, on the basis of thepresent situation of environmental protection in China, research objectives and significanceare analyzed in detail. The current situation of environmental liability insurance theories inChina and foreign countries is introduced. On this basis, research ideas and methods of thisthesis are developed. Moreover, innovative aspects and light spots of this thesis are explicitlyfigured out.In the third part, on the basis of investigating the status quo of environmental liabilityinsurance in China, the author makes an in-depth study of the current situation aboutlegislation and pilot work for environmental liability insurance in China and analyzesproblems existing in China’s environmental liability insurance and the causes. China’senvironmental liability insurance develops following problems: imperfect relevant laws andregulations, the lack of effective government administrative supervision and punishment enforcement, limited effects of judicial relief and the weakness awareness of environmentalprotection among the public and enterprises.In the fourth part, legal countermeasures for improving China’s environmental liabilityinsurance system are put forward. Countermeasures are developed from four aspects. Firstly,in terms of law making, China should develop guiding ideas for legislation of theenvironmental liability insurance system, perfect the legal system and establish relevantsupporting systems. Secondly, in terms of law enforcement, China should invest more effortsto provide governmental aids, enforce laws and make supervisions of its environmentalliability insurance system. Thirdly, in terms of justice administration, China should highlightthe judicial application of its environmental liability insurance system and perfectenvironmental courts. Lastly, advices are given for improving the law-abiding awareness ofthe public, in perspectives of enterprises and citizens.Despite of some limitations, the author makes explorations and research ofenvironmental liability insurance, in hope of contributing to the development of theenvironmental protection cause in China.