Study On Punitive Damages For Environmental Public Interest Torts

In order to in response to the frequent occurrence of environmental pollution and ecological damage,administrative enforcement failure and meet the needs of social reality,Article 1232 of the Civil Code introduced the punitive compensation system into the field of environmental public interest tort.Nevertheless,many scholars still have concerns about the application of punitive damages to environmental public interest torts,but the introduction of punitive damages in the field of environmental public interest torts is in response to the real needs and policy considerations of the real national conditions,rather than based on theoretical logic in the context of the separation of public and private law.In this sense,the combination of environmental public interest tort and punitive damages system has a strong pragmatic color,and the existence and combination of the two is justified and necessary.In addition,as a kind of aggravated liability,the elements of punitive damages for environmental public interest tort naturally have their own special characteristics,which is also provided for in Article 1232 of the Civil Code.In order to distinguish the protection of interests and rights,and to balance the interests of environmental public interest and socio-economic development,it is also stipulated that the act must be illegal;and the damage must reach a serious degree.In order to interpret and concretize these special settings,it is necessary to explicitly limit the subjective reason to intentional,clarify the position of illegality in the constitutive elements,set a lower limit for "serious" in "serious consequences",and interpret the unique defenses of punitive damages for environmental public interest tort.At the same time,the reasonable setting of the amount of punitive damages is also the key link for the function of the punitive damages system for environmental public interest infringement to be well played.However,Article 1232 of the Civil Code does not specify the scope of punitive damages,calculation standards.It is necessary to propose corresponding ideas on the calculation of punitive damages in order to improve the punitive damages system for environmental public interest infringement and to make better use of its functions.