Discussion On The Public Litigation Regime Of Environmental Tort For Chinese Ocean Oil Pollution

In accordance with the current process of the amendment of the <Environment Protection Law>, the legitimacy of the environmental public litigation regime which is regarded as the new remedy for the environmental tort has been proved under the legal system, but the ConocoPhillips Company case has not been solved. Firstly, two maritime courts refused to place on file for the fishermen because of lack of the evidences that proved the causality between the tort and the loss. If the environmental public litigation was filed, there is still no legal basis for regarding the losses of the fishermen as the object of the environmental public litigation, so the definition and the scope of the word "public benefit" shall be clarified. The scope of the plaintiff in environmental public litigation of ocean oil pollution shall be enlarged otherwise the regime is meaningless for the direct victims. Considering the needs for protecting the actual benefit, the "public benefit"shall be distinguished in two ways because the "private benefit" has been considered as a main element of filing an environmental public law suit in practice. The remedy system of ocean oil pollution tort shall be adjusted in accordance with the extension of the plaintiff scope in ocean oil pollution cases, including but not limited to the extension of the responsible party and remedy scope. Building up the compensation liability fund and the liability insurance system for ocean oil pollution is the common method across the world, but in China we are still on the way. In our opinion, the compensation liability fund and the liability insurance system shall be supportive to the environmental public litigation regime.