| Acid rain pollution is an air pollution problem within the sovereignty of a country’s territory; meanwhile, it also has the characteristics of cross-border pollution because the atmosphere circulation makes it possible to pollute its neighbors and even distant countries or regions.Acid rain pollution is facing severe challenge now in China. Acid rain polluted areas in China has occupied 40% of the whole territory. China has become the third acid rain polluted area after Europe and North America. At the same time, acid rain pollution is also a concern for some other countries in Asia region. If it can not be solved well, it will affect environment safety within this region. However, the effective measures should be taken after bilateral or multilateral environmental co-operation mechanism between China and her neighboring countries.Because of acid rain pollution as a domestic and international problem, this dissertation set out to deal with China’s acid rain pollution in the perspective of legal system research from two dimensions:one was based on China’s domestic legal reform and legal system innovation, the other was an exploration into the establishment of regional co-operation mechanism to deal with acid rain pollution problems between China and its Asian neighboring countries. The United Nation’s Conference on Human Environment held in Stockholm in 1972, proposed to explore the cross-border acid rain pollution problem at the first time; the representatives of participating countries signed the ""Declaration on the Human Environment in Stockholm," which set some relevant environment protection principles. These principles include:1, each country should ensure that all activities held within its scope of jurisdiction should not bring damage to other countries’environment safety; 2, A country that caused environmental damage to the other countries is obliged to bear the cross-boarder environmental pollution liability to compensate for the damage; 3. It is urgent to establish bilateral or multilateral co-operation mechanism to prevent cross-border air environment pollution. All these relevant principles based on Stockholm Declaration on the Human Environment, laid a solid academic foundation for this research to explore the methods to solve the acid rain pollution problems by means of bilateral or multilateral co-operation between China and its Asian neighboring countries.In order to effectively regulate the domestic and cross-border acid rain pollution problems, this research attempted to make an exploration into the innovation of existing ecological legal system and its related system, that means, after careful reflection and positive integration and interpretation., this study made great efforts to respond to the existing legal system in the perspectives of constitution, ecological law, economic law, civil law, administrative law, procedure law, criminal law and international law etc, in order to launch a "green revolution" of present legal system to promote the existing law, regulations and the legal system to a sustainable positive change and institutional innovation. As a result, it will reach a goal to realize the perfection of the eco-environment law legislative form, the citizen’s environmental rights, and environmental criminal liability.The significance of this research was to seek a feasible path to solve the domestic and cross-boarder acid rain pollution problems, including the improvement of the domestic legal system and co-operation mechanism at international level, in order to harmonize China’s environmental legal system with other related legal systems and constitutional systems. As a result, it will help to improve the solution of the acid rain pollution problems either in China or in our Asian neighboring countries, most importantly, it will be helpful to realize China’s ecological environment with economic and social sustainable development.This dissertation was divided into four parts. The first part was the theoretical framework (From Chapter one to chapter three), it was the theoretical basis to solve domestic and cross-boarder acid rain pollution problems, including the interpretation of theoretical framework, the analysis of basic legal principles and the deconstruction of legal principles to solve acid rain pollution problems, which will be the milestone to construct the acid rain pollution legal system in China.The first chapter was "an interpretation of a number of theories on the exploration into legal system to solve the acid rain pollution problems." As a theoretical foundation and logical starting point, this chapter constructed the theoretical framework to solve the acid rain pollution problems in the perspective of legal philosophy, legal sociology, legal economics and economics, in order to offer theoretical support for the construction of legal system to solve acid rain pollution problems. The chapter two was "An analysis of legal principles to solve acid rain pollution problems." It focused on an analysis of seven legal principles to solve the acid rain pollution problems in China, which offered legal standards to carry out the solution of acid rain pollution problems. They include:burden of Polluter; environmental equity; the precautionary prevention; notification information; territorial sovereignty and territorial integrity and the friendly neighbor relations. The chapter three was "Deconstruction of legal system on the issues of acid rain pollution problems." This chapter aimed to construct the basic legal system to solve acid rain pollution problems. It selectively demonstrated the present system to solve the acid rain pollution problems in the perspectives of first prevention, involvement in the participation and subsequent relief; these systems mainly included public participation, environmental liability insurance system, environmental impact assessment system, environmental public interest litigation and environmental information disclosure system. It will provide ecological legal system to escort the solution of acid rain pollution problems.The second section of my dissertation was about solution of the cross-boarder acid air pollution problems in empirical study (chapter four). The chapter four was "Empirical comparative study on U.S.-Canada cross-boarder dispute settlement mechanism of acid rain pollution." Based on the empirical comparative study on U.S.-Canada cross-boarder dispute settlement mechanism of acid rain pollution, it will provide a useful reference to the reconstruction of ecological legal system to solve the domestic and cross-boarder acid rain pollution problems. It was be discussed in three aspects:first, bilateral negotiation mechanism between U.S. and Canada; second, research on the construction of domestic settlement mechanism in response to cross-boarder acid rain pollution in the perspective of provincial government, federal government, and the co-operation between provincial government and federal government. Third, research on the construction of domestic settlement mechanism in response to cross-boarder acid rain pollution in the perspective of the federal government and the state government, the more emphasis put on the analysis of "Clean Air Act". Based on the empirical studies, this chapter put forward four strategies on the references to U.S. and Canada’s cross-border acid rain pollution settlement mechanism. First, it is urgent to revise "Atmosphere Pollution Prevention Law," and add some provisions of law on "Acid Rain Program"; second, it is urgent to revise "Atmosphere Pollution Prevention Law," and increase the corresponding terms to improve the cross-border acid rain pollution settlement; third, it is urgent to add guides to atmospheric pollutant emissions; Forth, the local governments should make local laws and regulations to meet the national law enforcement to solve the acid rain pollution problems. Acid rain pollution problems have become an international issue, the measures we took to the settlement of this problem were not only based on the domestic ecological legal improvement but put more emphasis on the cooperation globally in the perspective of international law in order to effectively solve acid rain pollution problems on the references to these countries facing the same acid rain pollution problems.The third section was the analysis of system construction to solve cross-border acid rain problems. Based on the empirical research on U.S. and Canada’s cross-border acid rain pollution settlement, the chapter five creatively put forward the acid rain pollution co-operative settlement mechanism between China and its Asian neighboring countries by means of deeper empirical study on the acid rain pollution problems between China and its Asian neighboring countries.The section four (chapter six) was the construction of legal redress mechanism on the acid rain pollution settlement. The chapter six attempted to provide effective legal strategies to solve acid rain pollution problems by means of construction and improvement of China’s legal system, administrative legal systems, the criminal legal system and tax revenue legal system. First of all, China should create environment code in the perspective of ecological legal system while improving the pollutant emission sewage charges of "Atmospheric Pollution Prevention Act" and add tradable emission permits.Since it was enacted in 1989, China’s "Environmental Protection Law" has not undergone any revision. In order to catch up with the steps of development requirements, it needs revision whether in the perspective of legislative concepts or enterprise responsibility system because it has seriously hampered the smooth progress of acid rain pollution settlement. The pollutant emission sewage charges system need improvement in the following aspects:1.To increase the Appropriate standards of the pollutant emission sewage charges; 2.To Strengthen the administrative punishment of the pollutant emission sewage charges; 3. To establish rules of law against exceeding violence of regulations; 4, To improve legal system of the management mechanism of sewage charges.Since China currently lacks a sound legal framework to regulate emissions trading system, therefore, China must learn from developed countries, especially in the full success of the United States based on the experience of emissions trading. China should construct pollutant emission trading system by focusing on our existing environmental law system, in order to solve the acid rain pollution problems in a long way to realize environmental sustainability with social and economic development. Secondly, in the perspective of administrative legal system, China should set up a sound legal system of environmental accountability; it should not only establish and improve environment accountability with the existing legal norms but also revise "Administrative Procedure Law" to emphasize the administrative accountability to reach the ultimate realization of administrative accountability procedures, standardization and transparency. It will lay the legislative basis for the realization of environmental accountability procedures. In addition, in the perspective of criminal justice system, it is urgent to improve China’s environmental criminal legislation in order to effectively curb environmental crime. Finally, in the perspective of improvement of China’s tax revenue legal system, China should build environmental tax law legal system. Based on my research, I drew the following conclusions:first, to promote the whole "green" standard of existing tax system; second, to clarify the tax principles that the environmental law tax need to follow; third, to establish the rules to regulate the sulfur dioxide tax of acid rain pollution. In this research, its contribution was that the construction of China’s environmental tax and the greening of the whole tax system, should refer to the successful experience of some related western countries. Based on the introduction and references of their successful experiences, we need to transform it scientifically based on our specific situation in order to gain the double wins in the aspects of acid rain pollution settlement and sustainable increase of GDP. |
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