Researching The Environmental Pollution Of Joint Tort

With the development of economy, the industrial and household wastesdischarged into the environment are also increasing, which gradually exceed theself-purification capability of the environment and as a result brings serious pollutionand causes impact to the people’s production and life. In the environmental pollutiontort disputes, there appears the phenomenon of compound pollution tort. Thetraditional theory is unable to meet the needs of social development with respect tocorrect understanding of the environmental joint tort and its liability. Due toenvironmental joint tort is different from traditional tort theory, various views havebeen expressed to the understanding of Article67of the Tort Liability Law, whichbrings difficulty to the settlement of such cases in judicial practice. This paper isdivided into seven sections, trying to give a correct understanding of Article67through theoretical research and practical analysis on environmental joint tortproblems:The first section describes the research background of this paper, including theenvironmental pollution in China and the three controversies on understanding ofArticle67of Tort Liability Law: whether joint tort is constituted when the damagefact is caused by multiple environmental pollution behaviors; whether the individualliability of polluter provided for by Article67is the external liability to the victims orthe internal liability among polluters; the application relation of Article67with thegeneral provisions of Article11and article12. The second section mainly analyzes the joint tort theory and legislation. Analysison the joint tort theory is mainly aimed at its essence, which is divided into threeperspectives: subjective theory, objective theory and compromise theory. The meritsand demerits thereof are discussed in the first part of this section. The second part liststhe legislation development in relation to the joint tort in china.The third section discusses the relation between the joint tort and the joint andseveral liability from three angles of academic debate, comparative law andjurisprudence and concludes that it is questionable to impose the joint and severalliability to the joint tortfeasors for the contradiction to social justice and jurisprudence.This can be associated with the question whether the joint tort by more than twopolluters shall bear individual or joint and several liability which is provided for inArticle67.The fourth section is the comparative law study on the relevant legislation andcases of Germany, Japan, Britain and Taiwan for a summary of experience forimproving the joint tort system of environmental pollution in China.The fifth section is based on two cases in order to analyze different judicialpractices in case of environmental pollution: one is ruled for the joint and severalliability, and other one is ruled for individual liability.The sixth section elaborates on the four elements for the constitution of theenvironmental joint tort, i.e. multiple subjects, associated behaviors, one damage fact,and the general causal relationships, combined with relevant cases analyzed in detail.The second part includes a category analysis of environmental pollution by multiplepolluters and a summary of understanding and application of Article67. As aconclusion, it raises that Article67shall be general applicable to the jointenvironmental pollution cases as an external liability provision.