Liability for Environmental Harm and Emerging Global Environmental Law

doi:10.13438/j.cnki.jdxb.2016.03.001

Abstract

Abstract:

With the growth of global concern for the environment，nations are transplanting environmental law and policy innovations even from countries with very different legal and cultural traditions.These developments are blurring lines that traditionally separated conceptions of domestic and international law and public and private law.This is leading to the emergence of “global environmental law.” This paper reviews the historical development of liability standards for environmental harm and their haphazard incorporation into public international law.It discusses evolving national standards of liability and the obstacles that have made it difficult for victims of environmental harm to hold polluters liable under domestic law.It then examines initiatives to overcome these obstacles in certain countries by relaxing traditional causation requirements and shifting burdens of proof.The paper also explores how climate change is spawning new litigation strategies that seek to hold polluters liable for global harm as well as the growth of private litigation to recover against multinational enterprises for the harm their actions cause in foreign countries.It concludes that as globalization continues to blur traditional distinctions between international and domestic law and between private and public law，liability standards for global harm are emerging more from “bottom up,” private initiatives than from the negotiation of multilateral treaties.As a result，as countries strengthen their own domestic liability standards to redress environmental harm，states’ receptiveness to entertain lawsuits by foreign plaintiffs and the development of reciprocity standards for the recognition of foreign judgments will become increasingly important.Transnational private litigation will help provide further impetus for the development of global liability norms that ultimately will become an important part of the new architecture of global environmental law.

Key words: environmental harm liability, global environmental law, environmental litigation, public international law

Robert V.Percival；YANG Zhaoxia，HUANG Jing. Liability for Environmental Harm and Emerging Global Environmental Law[J]. Journal of Jishou University（Social Sciences）, DOI: 10.13438/j.cnki.jdxb.2016.03.001.

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