Source: https://pl.b-ok.org/book/862867/509692
Timestamp: 2019-12-06 23:21:03
Document Index: 442840264

Matched Legal Cases: ['art. 33', 'art. 5', 'art.\n4', 'art. 9', 'art. 32', 'art. 12', 'art. 24', 'art. 18', 'art. 8', 'Art. 34', 'Art. 56', 'Art. 46', 'art. 1', 'art. 60', 'art. 9', 'art. 19', 'Art. 35', 'art. 46', 'art. 50', 'Art. 14', 'Art. 15', 'Art. 47', 'Art. 16', 'art. 12', 'art. 51']

China And International Environmental Liability: Legal Remedies for Transboundary Pollution (New Horizons in Environmental Law) | Michael Faure, Song Ying | download
Strona główna China And International Environmental Liability: Legal Remedies for Transboundary Pollution (New Horizons..
This book considers the ways in which transboundary environmental pollution can be remedied through a variety of legal instruments. Particular attention is paid to the pollution of the Songhua river in China, but legal remedies to transboundary pollution are also discussed in a broader context. The focus of this book is on international environmental law and international conventions as well as the application of national environmental law in a transboundary legal context. Thus contributions also concentrate on voluntary approaches, the importance of transboundary environmental impact assessment and the application of national criminal law to transboundary pollution. Not only is transboundary pollution discussed from the perspective of international law, but also from that of the application of national law to transboundary pollution, thus centering on private law, administrative law and criminal law.As such, this book will be of great interest to academics, practitioners and students.
Liczba stron: 360 / 381
ISBN 10: 1847207529
ISBN 13: 9781848445000
S.W. Simpson, G.H. Crawshaw
China and International Environmental
Environmental and Energy Law, University of Leuven, Belgium and Zen Makuch,
Department of Environmental Science and Technology, Imperial College, London,
Environmental law is an increasingly important area of legal research. Given the
increasingly interdependent web of global society and the significant steps being
made towards environmental democracy in decision-making processes, there are
few people that are untouched by environmental law-making processes.
At the same time, environmental law is at a crossroads. The command and control
methodology that evolved in the 1960s and 1970s for air, land and water protection
may have reached the limit of its environmental protection achievements. New life
needs to be injected into our environmental protection regimes. This series seeks to
press forward the boundaries of environmental law through innovative research
into environmental protection standards, procedures, alternative instruments and
case law. Adopting a wide interpretation of environmental law, it includes contributions from both leading and emerging European and international scholars.
Law, Maastricht University, and Professor of Comparative
Professor of International Law, Peking University, People’s
© Michael Faure and Song Ying 2008
Library of Congress Control Number: 2008932879
ISBN 978 1 84720 752 4
Chapter 1 Introduction and editorial preface
1 Problem deﬁnition and reasons for this book
2 History and origins of this book
3.1 Legal multi-disciplinary
3.2 Comparative approach
3.3 Multi-disciplinary
5 Framework of the project
6 Structure of this book
Cluster-litigation in cases of transboundary
2.2 Human rights courts
2.3 Forums for interstate claims
2.4 Non-judicial fora
3 Formal connections between the options
4 The separate responsibility of the parties
5 The limited scope of the applicable law
6 The limited scope of applicable secondary rules of responsibility
7 The complementary nature of the diﬀerent options
The role of international conventions in solving
transboundary pollution disputes
2 Background to the dispute
3 Interpretation and application of the 1975 Statute
4 Cooperation and consultation in international environmental law
5 Provision of information and environmental impact assessment
6 Substantive pollution standards
7 Achieving an optimum and rational utilisation
8 The multi-faceted nature of international disputes
Transboundary vessel-source marine pollution –
international legal framework and its application to China
2 The international legal framework for transboundary vesselsource pollution: an overview and evolution
2.1 Current legal framework: overview
2.2.1.1 Early attempts
2.2.1.2 1969 Intervention Convention
2.2.1.3 1982 UNCLOS
2.2.2.1 OILPOL 1954
2.2.2.2 MARPOL 73/78
2.2.2.3 COLREGs
2.2.2.4 SOLAS
2.2.2.5 STCW Convention
2.2.3 Response: OPRC
2.2.4 Liability
2.2.4.1 CLC/Fund
2.2.4.2 HNS Convention
2.2.4.3 Bunker Convention
3.2 Historical development of Chinese law on transboundary
3.3 Analysis of Chinese laws on transboundary vessel-source
4 Analysis of competences to remedy transboundary vessel-source
4.2 Flag state jurisdiction
4.2.1 Prescriptive jurisdiction
4.2.2 Enforcement jurisdiction
4.2.3 Registration of a ship
4.3 Coastal state jurisdiction
4.3.2 Internal waters and ports
4.3.3 Territorial sea
4.3.4 EEZ
4.3.5 High seas
4.3.6 Evaluation
4.4 Port state jurisdiction
4.4.1 UNCLOS
4.4.2 MOUs
4.5 Comparative summary
ILC proposal on the role of origin state in
2 Loss allocation scheme proposed by ILC
3 Compromise proposal on the role of origin state
3.1 Sources of international law on the role of state
3.2 The work of ILC
4 Weaker proposal on the role of multinational corporations
4.1 International law on the role of multinational corporations
4.2 The work of the ILC
5 Proposal absent regarding the role of home state
5.1 International law about the role of the home state
5.2 The work of ILC
PART II NATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL LAW IN A
TRANSBOUNDARY LEGAL CONTEXT
Applying national liability law to transboundary
pollution: some lessons from Europe and the United States
2 International law in a transboundary liability case
2.1 General: monism versus dualism
2.2 The Chernobyl case: district court of Bonn
2.3 MDPA case: direct application of international law
3.2 Brussels Convention
3.3 Council Regulation 44/2001
4.2 EU law: Rome II update
5.1 Individual victims as claimants
5.2 NGOs as claimants
5.3 Environmental liability directive and public
authorities as claimants
5.4 Public authorities as defendants: immunity?
6.1 Strict liability or negligence?
6.2 Violating a regulatory norm or a duty of care
6.3 Breach of foreign law
6.5 Environmental liability directive
7 Applicable remedies
7.1 Article 6:184 Dutch Civil Code: costs of preventive
7.1.1 Borcea
7.1.2 International conventions
7.1.3 Other recoverable costs: detection costs
7.2 Cross-border injunctions
US citizen suits: the Pakootas case
7.3.1 Action by the US Environmental Protection Agency
7.3.2 Judgment
7.3.3 Extraterritoriality or not?
7.3.4 Would a European Pakootas be possible?
7.3.5 Choice of law
8 Eﬀect of a (foreign) licence
9 Recognition and enforcement
The joint governance of transboundary river basins:
some observations on the role of law
2 Water pollution and the broad concept of
2.1 From a single issue oriented approach to a holistic
2.2 The dependent position of the victim state: how to
approach the pollutant state?
2.3 Regime approach
2.4 The diﬃculties surrounding standard setting
2.5 A less legalistic approach seems (at least in some cases)
more beneﬁcial
3 A focus on two international river commissions
3.1 The International Meuse Commission
3.1.2 The Treaty
3.1.3 The Commission
3.1.5 Dispute settlement
3.2 The Commission for the Protection of the Rhine
3.2.2 Treaty
3.2.3 The International Commission for the
4 Some surrounding legal developments: what has been agreed
at the international and EC level?
4.2 1992 UN ECE Convention on the Protection and Use of
4.3 1992 Paris Convention on the Protection of the Marine
4.4 EC Framework Directive on Water Quality
4.5 Overlapping legal regimes
5.1 The common approach of a managerial and not so
much legalistic governance style
5.2 Holistic problem solving, even including trade-oﬀs and
5.3 Towards sophisticated and accountable river-regimes
A new look at environmental impact assessments:
using customary law to prevent domestic and
2 Overview and history of EIA
3 Obligation to conduct an EIA
3.1 National EIA legislation
3.2 Treaty obligation
3.3 International environmental law principles
3.4 Customary environmental law
4 Proving an EIA as customary environmental law
5 Implications of considering an EIA as customary law
6 Enforcement of customary EIA obligation
Transboundary environmental crimes: an analysis of
Chinese and European law
2.1 Braiding between national and international law
2.1.1 Council of Europe level
2.1.2 EU level
2.1.2.1 Harmonisation of criminal law
2.1.2.2 European arrest warrant
2.1.3 Interim result
2.1.4 National level – Germany
3 Chinese law
3.1 Economic rise
3.3 Transboundary damages
3.3.1 Atmospheric, water or radioactive pollution
3.3.1.1 General outline
3.3.1.2 Songhua River accident of November
3.3.2 Solid waste import and export
3.3.3 Traﬃcking in endangered species
THE SONGHUA RIVER POLLUTION CASE
Reﬂections from the transboundary pollution of
2 Four kinds of potential disputes
2.1 The Russian Government v the Chinese Government
2.2 The Russian Government v PetroChina
2.3 Russian victims v the Chinese Government
2.4 Russian victims v PetroChina
3.1 Promotion of the establishment of international
3.2 Establishment of international contingency plan
3.3 Establishment of ﬁnancial contingency plan for
compensation of transboundary pollution
3.4 Provision of equal treatment to non-citizens
4 Actual actions taken by China
Pondering over the incident of Songhua River
pollution from the perspective of environmental law
Wang Canfa, Yu Wen-xuan, Li Dan and Li Jun-hong
Problems of China’s current environmental legislation through
analysis of the Songhua River pollution incident
2.1 The guiding legislation ideology is in deviation
from the basic requirements of environmental protection
2.2 Some important environmental legal systems are
badly in need of establishment
2.3 Some supplementary systems are needed in the
current environmental legal system
2.3.1 Environmental counter-emergency system
2.3.2 System for the settlement of administrative
transregional environmental disputes
2.3.3 Transboundary environmental disputes settlement
2.4 Relevant regulations need perfection
3 Ways to improve China’s environmental legislation
3.1 Change the ideology and establish the basic principle
of environmental legislation: social and economic
development should be in harmony with
3.1.1 Precautionary principle should be carried out
completely in the environmental legislation
3.1.2 EIA on strategy, policy, law and plan should
be given importance
3.1.3 It is indispensable to improve the feasibility of
environmental legislation and pay more
attention to law enforcement
3.2 Establish and perfect important environmental legal
3.2.1 System for compulsory environmental liability
3.2.2 Fund for environmental damage compensation
3.2.3 Environmental counter-emergency system
3.2.4 System for the settlement of administrative
3.2.5 System for the settlement of transboundary
3.3 Revise relevant laws and regulations
4 The important step to improve China’s environmental
legislation – the establishment of law of environmental
International legal aspect of the Songhua
2 Songhua River spill and subsequent development
3 International legal issues of the incident
3.1 Nature of the incident
3.2 Applicable international principles and rules?
3.2.1 International treaties
3.2.2 International customs
3.3 Responsibility and liability issues
3.3.1 State responsibility
3.3.2 Liability
3.3.2.1 Subject of possible compensation
3.3.2.2 Scope of possible compensation
4 Conclusion – future perspectives
Chapter 13 Comparative and concluding remarks
2 Inﬂuence of international law on national law
3 Applying domestic law to transboundary pollution
4 Multifaceted litigation
Universial customary law
Pollution permitted according to environmental
regulations of Country A
Unlawful pollution according to environmental
Ambient sea water quality
International legal framework for transboundary vesselsource marine pollution
8A.1 List of national EIA legislation and year enacted
8A.2 List of treaties and declarations containing EIA provisions
Betlem, Gerrit, Professor of European Union Law, School of Law,
Faure, Michael, Professor of Comparative and International
Environmental Law, METRO, Maastricht University, the Netherlands
Gou, Haibo, Department of Treaty and Law, Ministry of Foreign Aﬀairs
of China, People’s Republic of China
Harrison, James, Teaching Fellow in International Law, School of Law,
Huang, Chiachen, Ph.D Candidate of Environmental Law, Law School,
Jacobs, Jack, Lecturer of Environmental Law, Arava Institute for
Environmental Studies, Ketura, Israel
Li, Dan, Environment Protection Law Research Institute of China
University of Political Science and Law, Beijing, People’s Republic of
Li, Jun-hong, Environment Protection Law Research Institute of China
Nollkaemper, André, Professor of Public International Law and Director
of the Amsterdam Center of International Law at the University of
Peeters, Marjan, Professor of Environmental Policy and Law, in particular
climate change issues, METRO, Maastricht University, the Netherlands
Richter, Thomas, lawyer and consultant for Chinese Law and Politics,
Song, Ying, Professor of International Law, School of Law, Peking
Wang, Canfa, Environment Protection Law Research Institute of China
Wang, Hui, Catholic University of Leuven, Leuven, Belgium
Wang, Jin, Professor of Environmental Law, Peking University, People’s
Yan, Houfu, Ph.D Candidate of Environmental Law, Law School, Peking
Yu, Wen-xuan, Environment Protection Law Research Institute of China
Oﬃce of Compliance Advisor/Ombudsman
Comisión Administradora del Rió Uruguay
Chinese Penal Law
Environmental Damage Compensation System
Environmental Liability Insurance System
GCEPNPI
General Counter Emergency Plan for National
Compensation for Damage in Connection with
the Carriage of Hazardous and Noxious
Substances by Sea
Maastricht European Institute for Transnational
Mechanism for Socializing Environmental Risks
Preparedness, Response and Co-operation
State Environment Protection Agency
International Convention for the Safety of Life at
Training, Certiﬁcation and Watchkeeping for
PROBLEM DEFINITION AND REASONS FOR
One of the unpleasant side-eﬀects of globalization, economic development
and growth is that not only do beneﬁts cross national borders, but also problems like environmental pollution. This phenomenon has been studied from
various disciplines and more particularly in international law. By the 1930s
cases between states determined the extent to which polluting states could
be held under international law to compensate for damage caused to the
victim state. Recent disputes (e.g. between Argentina and Uruguay) show
that although international environmental law has gone through a long
development, there are still many uncertainties that need to be clariﬁed.
In addition, transboundary environmental legal disputes are not only
remedied through instruments of international law. Increasingly, victims in
national states also seek to apply their domestic legislation to transboundary environmental pollution cases. This raises a number of interesting questions, inter alia with respect to the competent forum, but also with respect
to the applicable liability rule and the available remedies.
To date the literature on international law and private law has to a large
extent developed into separate doctrines, with international lawyers attempting to identify the scope of state responsibility under international law and
private lawyers attempting to explain to what extent victims could get compensation for transboundary pollution using the techniques of private law.
However, it is becoming clear that these two domains are not totally separate. We increasingly notice that in domestic cases dealing with transboundary issues the question also arises to what extent treaties or other
international norms could furnish a source of liability. Moreover, in some
speciﬁc cases treaties explicitly establish liability rules (e.g. in the case of
nuclear liability or oil pollution). The ﬁrst goal of this book is to therefore
examine the remedies available for transboundary environmental pollution
in an integrated manner. Thereby we will not only focus on remedies available in international law (conventions, customary international law), but we
will integrate these in remedies available at the domestic level. The latter not
only concern remedies of private law, but also of administrative and eventually criminal law. Indeed, the importance for potential victims of, for
example, a new transboundary industrial project having to possibly intervene
in the administrative procedure in a neighbouring country will be determined
by national administrative law and should therefore be included in the discussion. Moreover, some prosecutors in victim states may wish to apply their
national criminal law to pollution cases even if the origin of the pollution is
from a foreign state, but the consequences are felt in the victim state. One
goal of this book is to address the variety of all of these legal remedies available to transboundary environmental pollution in an integrated manner.
In addition to addressing these legal remedies for transboundary pollution, an important goal is moreover (as our main title suggests) to analyse
how all of these legal rules can apply to the speciﬁc case of China. The
reason for focusing on China may be obvious. Increasingly, both scholars
and politicians are aware of the fact that the spectacular economic development of China comes at a high cost as far as environmental pollution is
concerned. Such concerns are gradually becoming more prominent at the
Chinese domestic level. However, it is also obvious that pollution caused as
a result of industrial activities within China has consequences which are
unfortunately not conﬁned within the Chinese borders. One result of this
economic development may therefore be that China can increasingly be
confronted with neighbouring states arguing that they suﬀer harm as a
result of environmental pollution coming from China. Recently it was even
held that atmospheric pollution taking place in the state of California in
the United States could allegedly have its source in industrial activities in
China. In all of these cases the same questions arise, more particularly,
whether either China or individual polluters within China can be held liable
for this type of transboundary pollution. It is interesting to focus on this
speciﬁc case of China since it is well known that the Chinese industry and
economy have developed at a higher speed than environmental protection.
Domestic environmental law in China still needs to be developed to be
able to follow the rapid evolutions of economic development. The question
therefore arises as to what extent some limitations of domestic environmental law in China may also have their consequences when transboundary environmental pollution occurs. A recent highly debated case also
showed that this question is far from hypothetical. As a result of an incident in the north of China a large part of the Songhua River was polluted,
leading to a potential pollution in Russia. This case has been taken as a test
for many scholars to examine to what extent Chinese law is able to deal adequately with such a case of transboundary pollution, though our three
Chinese colleagues may not necessarily agree with each other on whether it
has caused serious transboundary water pollution to Russia.
In summary, this book aims, on the one hand, to provide an integrated
approach to the legal remedies available for transboundary pollution and,
on the other hand, to examine the relevance of this transboundary environmental liability for the speciﬁc case of China.
HISTORY AND ORIGINS OF THIS BOOK
This book originates from a long-standing cooperation between various
Chinese and European institutions that led to the realization of a research
project which was at the origin of this book. Within the framework of the EUChina European Studies Centres Programme (ESCP), the European Studies
Center of Peking University (PKU) cooperates with several universities in
Europe (Dublin, Erlangen, London School of Economics and Maastricht).
As part of this project, an international conference took place in Beijing
on 19–21 May 2007 under the title ‘Europe: from nation states to a state of
nations’. One panel within this conference was speciﬁcally devoted to environmental issues and was coordinated by the editors of this book, who also
have a long-standing relationship of cooperation. During the conference
many papers were presented by various academics and some practitioners.
This book is therefore largely the result of this cooperation between Peking
University and, more particularly, Maastricht University as far as the area
of environmental law is concerned.
As we have already indicated above, various approaches have been followed
in the diﬀerent chapters in this book. We believe that these various
approaches are also necessary to answer the complicated questions related
to transboundary environmental pollution.
Legal multi-disciplinary
A legal multi-disciplinary approach has been followed by many authors
since the problem of providing legal remedies to transboundary pollution
is so important that various legal disciplines should be used to provide a
full picture. We already indicated that we see one of the goals of this book
is to provide an integrated approach, using various disciplines to identify
how transboundary environmental pollution can be remedied from various
angles. The following insights and legal disciplines have therefore been
used, combined and integrated:
Human Rights: as is made clear in various contributions to this
book, in some cases it is argued that transboundary environmental
pollution violates fundamental human rights which is the responsibility of the violating state. Hence the question arises to what extent
the human rights approach to environmental pollution can also
remedy transboundary environmental pollution.
International law: clearly the ﬁrst type of remedy one could think of
in the case of transboundary pollution is the application of principles of international law, potentially leading to state responsibility. In
this respect attention should not only be based on general principles
of transboundary liability, but also on the importance of customary
international law and, of course, on the role of treaties.
Administrative law: in some cases (national) administrative law can
be applied usefully by victims against transboundary environmental
pollution. This may be the case when victims can intervene in administrative procedures abroad leading, for example, to the licensing of
a harmful activity. Also the requirement of an environmental impact
assessment can substantially improve the rights of victims of transboundary pollution.
Private law: a crucial issue is of course to what extent (national)
private law can be applied in a transboundary pollution context.
Speciﬁc questions in this respect not only arise as far as the application of liability rules is concerned (the applicable standard, causation
issues etc), but, more particularly, relating to the applicable law and
the issue of jurisdiction. The question in this respect arises, more particularly, on whether victims have the right to bring a suit against
foreign polluters in their home state.
Criminal law: criminal law may in some cases be applied to transboundary environmental pollution which comes from a neighbouring country. In that respect the question arises on whether the
criminal law merely punishes a harmful emission (which took place
abroad) or also the harmful result (pollution) which may take place
in the home state. When the wrongful emission is criminalized the
question also arises on whether following the foreign licence could be
an excuse in criminal law.
This book places much emphasis on legal comparison. We have clearly indicated that relevant international conventions will be examined, but also all
of the above-mentioned aspects will be approached from a comparative
perspective. The comparative perspective consists not only of looking at all
diﬀerent aspects of legal remedies (international law, public environmental
law) but also by comparing solutions by entirely diﬀerent legal systems
(Israel, various European states, the European Union, the United States
Even though the main focus of this book is on how the law can be shaped
in order to provide optimal remedies for transboundary pollution, various
other disciplines can also be useful in contributing to answer that question.
For example economists have indicated that transboundary environmental
pollution can be considered as an ‘externality’ (external eﬀect). Thus some
chapters in this book will use economic analysis to answer the question
whether (international) legal remedies can be considered an eﬀective instrument to internalize the externality caused by transboundary pollution. In
addition, it may be clear that transboundary pollution sometimes involves
stronger polluter states inﬂicting harm upon weaker victim states. Thus
some insights from political science will also be used, for example to predict
under what circumstances bargaining between states or between the parties
involved may result in fruitful solutions.
The topics chosen in this book all relate to the central question, being how
legal remedies can remedy transboundary environmental pollution. The
book thus consists of a series of chapters that each in its own way tries to
answer that question. However, since a diﬀerence can be made between
remedies at the international level and at the national level, the chapters
have been arranged in three parts.
The ﬁrst set of chapters (Part I) deals with the role of international environmental law and, more particularly, conventions in remedying transboundary environmental law. The contributions in this part on the one
hand discuss the relevance of applicable bilateral and multilateral conventions, but also discuss principles of customary international law and their
application to transboundary environmental pollution.
The second set of chapters (Part II) deals with the application of national
law to transboundary pollution. This concerns on the one hand the application of national private (liability) law whereby speciﬁc questions are
addressed relating inter alia to the applicable law that the judge will use in
a transboundary pollution case and to the question whether NGOs could
also bring a suit. In addition, attention is also paid to the application
of environmental impact assessments in a transboundary way and to the
transboundary application of the criminal law.
Part III deals with some highly interesting case studies, more particularly
discussing a pollution incident that occurred in the Songhua River in the
north of China in 2005. Three Chinese authors discuss, each from their
speciﬁc expertise (Chinese environmental law, private law and international
law) the consequences of this spectacular case from a Chinese legal perspective. They not only critically discuss whether current Chinese law could
provide eﬃcient remedies for the pollution caused to the Songhua River to
victims in Russia, but they also indicate some deﬁciencies and formulate
proposals for legislative reforms.
The project which inspired this book was based on cooperation between
the Maastricht European Institute for Transnational Legal Research
(METRO), the research institute of the Faculty of Law of Maastricht
University and the Centre for European Studies of Peking University.
Many of the European researchers engaged in the project participate
within the Ius Commune Research School. The Ius Commune Research
School is a collaboration between the Universities of Amsterdam,
Leuven, Maastricht and Utrecht and focuses on law in integration
The chapters contained in this book are a selection of the papers that
were presented at the China-Europe conference which was held in May
2007 in Beijing. Afterwards some authors were invited to deal with speciﬁc
issues as separate contributions to the book.
It has already been stated above that the book is divided into three main
parts. Part I deals with international law and conventions. It contains a contribution by André Nollkaemper on cluster litigation in cases of transboundary environmental harm (Chapter 2). The third chapter is by James
Harrison and deals with ‘the role of international conventions in solving
transboundary pollution disputes’. The fourth chapter is by Wang Hui
dealing with ‘transboundary vessel-source marine pollution – the international legal framework and its application to China’. Chapter 5 by Gou
Haibo deals with the ‘ILC proposal on the role of origin state in transboundary damage’.
Part II deals with the application of national environmental law in a
transboundary legal context. Chapter 6, written by Michael Faure and
Gerrit Betlem, deals with the application of national liability law to transboundary pollution and addresses some lessons from Europe and the
United States. Chapter 7 written by Marjan Peeters deals with the joint governance of transboundary river basins. Chapter 8, by Jack Jacobs addresses
‘a new look at environmental impact assessments: using customary law to
prevent domestic and transboundary environmental damage’. Thomas
Richter addresses ‘transboundary environmental crimes – an analysis of
Chinese and European law’ in chapter 9.
Part III contains contributions dealing with the Songhua Jiang River
pollution case. Chapter 10 by Wang Jin, Huang Chiachen and Yan Houfu
deals with ‘reﬂections from the transboundary pollution of the Songhua
River’ thereby mainly addressing the incident from the perspective of environmental law. Chapter 11 by Wang Canfa, Yu Wenxuan, Ll Dan and
Li Junhong discusses the incidents of the Songhua River pollution from the
perspective of private law, and in Chapter 12 Song Ying analyses the same
incident from the perspective of international law.
Part IV consisting solely of Chapter 13 contains a set of comparative and
concluding remarks by the editors.
The contributors to this book come, as was made clear, from various universities in Europe, the United States and China. Michael Faure and
Marjan Peeters are from Maastricht University. Wang Hui works at
the Catholic University of Leuven. James Harrison is aﬃliated to
the University of Edinburgh. Gerrit Betlem works at the University
of Southampton. André Nollkaemper is from the University of
Amsterdam. Thomas Richter is a lawyer and an independent consultant
from Freiburg in Breisgau (Germany) on matters of Chinese law and
policy. Jack Jacobs works for the Arava Institute for Environmental
The Chinese contributors are from Peking University (Song Ying, Wang
Jin, Huang Chiachen and Yan Houfu) and from the Chinese University of
Political Science and Law (Wang Canfa, Yu Wenxuan, Li Dan and
Li Junhong). Gou Haibo is aﬃliated with the Ministry of Foreign Aﬀairs
A complete list of the contributors and their aﬃliation is provided in the
list of contributors on p. ix.
As editors of this book we are grateful to many people who made this
project possible. In this respect we refer both to the conference held in May
2007 in Beijing and to the publication of the book. First of all we would
like to thank the European Community and more particularly the
European Studies Centre of Peking University for ﬁnancial support for the
organization of the conference. We also owe thanks to the administrative
centre of the Maastricht European Institute for Transnational Legal
Research (METRO) and especially to Silvia Workum, Chantal Kuijpers
and Marina Jodogne for editorial assistance in the preparation of the publication of this book. Finally, we are truly grateful for the excellent and professional cooperation with the people working at Edward Elgar, our
publisher, for all their assistance in the publication of this book.
The texts were ﬁnalized in October 2007, and for that reason developments after that date have not been included in this book.
Maastricht/Beijing, December 2007
International Environmental Law and
Cluster-litigation in cases of
transboundary environmental harm
In this chapter I will discuss the phenomenon of cluster-litigation in cases
of transboundary environmental harm. With the term ‘cluster-litigation’, I
refer to a parallel or serial litigation of overlapping or closely related claims
before multiple courts.1
The phenomenon of cluster-litigation in cases of transboundary environmental harm is a consequence of the fact that, in many such cases,
private claimants who are injured by environmental harm originating from
across the border may use multiple options to present a claim for reparation.2 They may bring a claim against private parties that caused such
harm, for instance an industrial facility emitting waste water. They may
also bring claims against foreign states under whose jurisdiction such harm
originated and that have failed to take appropriate measures to prevent the
harm. In other cases, private injured parties may rely on the state of their
nationality to bring a claim against the wrongdoing state and to seek reparation on behalf of their nationals. They may also consider claims against
international organizations that support (for instance by providing loans)
activities resulting in transboundary environmental harm.
A good illustration of cluster-litigation in response to transboundary
environmental harm is the range of cases brought in connection with the
planned construction of pulp mills in Uruguay that may lead to pollution
1 Romano (2007b, p. 796) uses the term in reference to procedures at
international level. This article uses the concept in a broader meaning, also
encompassing domestic claims.
2 The term reparation is understood here in its meaning as a concept of
international law, encompassing restitution, compensation and satisfaction, either
singly or in combination. Articles on the Responsibility of States for Internationally
Wrongful Acts, Report of the International Law Commission on Work of its Fiftythird Session, UN GAOR, 56th Sess., Supp. No. 10 at art. 33, para. 2, UN Doc.
A/56/10 (2001), reprinted in Crawford (2002). Though the Articles do not apply to
International environmental law and conventions
of the River Uruguay.3 Argentina initiated proceedings against Uruguay in
the International Court of Justice – primarily to protect its own rights, but
with the potential eﬀect of protecting the interests of persons living in
Argentina.4 A group of (potentially) aﬀected individuals presented a claim
with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.5 Induced by
claims of NGOs, an Argentine Federal Prosecutor initiated a criminal
investigation into alleged environmental crimes by executives of the
Spanish and Finnish companies involved in the operation.6 A complaint
signed by over 39 000 people was submitted to the Oﬃce of Compliance
Advisor/ Ombudsman (CAO), an independent recourse mechanism for the
International Finance Corporation and the Multilateral Investment
Guarantee Agency that would provide ﬁnancial support for the construction of the mills.7 NGOs also lodged two so-called Speciﬁc Instances
against three European-based multinationals involved in the project for
alleged breaches of the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises.8
NGOs further ﬁled a complaint against two investment banks for supporting the project, alleging that it would violate the so-called Equator principles, an agreement between international banks in which they promise to
invest responsibly and respect environmental safeguards.9
claims by private persons against states, let alone to claims by private persons
against other private persons, this article uses the term as a shorthand for reparation claims that can be presented by private persons in cases of transboundary
3 See for the facts and expected environmental impacts of the project:
‘International Finance Corporation, Cumulative Impact Studies of the Uruguay
Pulp Mills’, www.ifc.org/ifcext/lac.nsf/AttachmentsByTitle/Uruguay_CIS_Oct
2006/$FILE/Uruguay_CIS_Oct2006.pdf.
4 Pulp Mills on the River Uruguay (Argentina v Uruguay); see brief discussion
by Bekker (2007).
5 The submission to the IACHR is available at www.cedha.org.ar/en/initiatives/paper_pulp_mills/peticion-cidh-ﬁnal.doc.
6 Press Release: ‘Prosecutor Admits Criminal Case and Open Investigations of
Company Executives in Uruguayan Cellulose Case’, www.cedha.org.ar/en/
more_information/papermills-criminal-case-federal-prosecutor.php.
7 Uruguay–Orion and Celulosas de M’Bopicua (CMB), www.cao-ombudsman.org/html-english/complaintOrionandCMB.htm.
8 The procedure is set forth in the OECD Guidelines for Multinational
Enterprises REVISION 2000, www.oecd.org/dataoecd/42/11/38297552.pdf,
pp. 35–37. See for general discussion of this accountability mechanism Human
Rights, Alternative Dispute Resolution and the OECD Guidelines for
Multinational Enterprises, Brieﬁng note for the participants at the Workshop on
Accountability and Dispute Resolution, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard
University 11–12 April, 2007, www.oecd.org/dataoecd/42/11/38297552.pdf.
9 The ‘Equator Principles’, www.equator-principles.com/principles.shtml.
Cluster-litigation and environmental harm
In many other incidents a comparable set of options may be open. Thus,
when a chemical spill in the PetroChina chemical plant in the Chinese city
of Harbin caused massive pollution of the Songhua River resulting in
harm to Russian waters across the border,10 aﬀected persons in Russia
could (theoretically) have litigated against the PetroChina chemical plant,
against the state of China, or they could have relied on the Russian government to press reparation claims against China.11
While the term cluster-litigation has not been used frequently in this
context, the phenomenon of multiple procedures in connection to a single
set of facts is not new and has been subject to scholarly analysis before. It
is at the heart of Harold Koh’s concept of transnational legal process, a
term that refers to the ‘the theory and practice of how public and private
actors – nation-states, international organizations, multinational enterprises, non-governmental organizations, and private individuals – interact
in a variety of public and private, domestic and international fora to
make, interpret, enforce, and ultimately, internalize rules of transnational
law’.12
The phenomenon of cluster-litigation, and of transnational legal
process as deﬁned by Koh, is relevant for two main reasons. First, on the
macro-level, it has considerable power to secure and explain compliance
with rules of international law. Compliance may not be ensured by any
particular form of litigation, but in combination, the use of domestic and
international fora may signiﬁcantly enhance the prospects that rules
of international law are complied with and that their objectives are
realized.13
Secondly, from the perspective of prospective claimants, the possibility
to use or trigger multiple proceedings is signiﬁcant because most individual litigation options are limited in terms of access, applicable law, remedies etc. By resorting to multiple fora, litigants can attempt to undo these
limitations, and ﬁnd comprehensive and eﬀective remedies.
It is this latter aspect of cluster-litigation that this chapter will explore.
The chapter will in particular focus on three issues. First, it will discuss the
pros and cons of various options that may be available to claimants in cases
of transboundary environmental harm. Secondly, it will identify the
10 See e.g. China apologizes to Russia for spill; Harbin reopens taps as
Khabarovsk plans emergency response; International Herald Tribune, November
28, 2005, p. 1.
11 See for a discussion of the legal responses to the incident, chapters 10–12 of
12 Koh (1996, pp. 183–184).
13 Koh (1979, p. 2599).
limitations of separate options for presenting claims. Thirdly, it will explore
the way in which, by pursuing multiple options, litigants may overcome
The chapter is written from the perspective of international law. It considers litigation options that in terms of competence, applicable law or
remedies are governed or at least inﬂuenced by international law or that, in
terms of outcomes, can contribute to the realization of international
norms. It follows that questions of domestic law that are relevant to clusterlitigation are only incidentally touched upon.
The chapter proceeds as follows. First it considers the question to what
forums prospective litigants may have access (section 2). It will then discuss
the procedural connections (or lack thereof) between the options (section
3); the connections (or lack thereof) between the responsibilities of defendants in various fora (section 4); the limitations of the applicable law
(section 5); secondary principles of responsibility in various individual procedures (section 6); and ﬁnally the possible complementary eﬀects between
various procedures (section 7). Section 8 contains brief conclusions.
In a scenario like that of the pulp mills dispute, litigants may have access to
a variety of options to present claims against persons allegedly responsible
for the transboundary harm. This section reviews four categories of
options for presenting claims: domestic courts, international human rights
courts, courts for interstate claims, and a residual set of non-legal forms of
accountability. While each of these options will have limiting rules on
access, claimants may pursue diﬀerent options at the same time or back-toback. Moreover, claims with comparable aims may be pursued by diﬀerent
parties (individuals, NGOs, states) each satisfying diﬀerent standards for
access to litigation.
Domestic courts may present an option to injured victims in essentially two
scenarios: (a) where private injured parties direct a claim either against a
private entity that allegedly is responsible for the harm, or (b) against a state
under whose jurisdiction such harm was caused.14
14 At least under US law, also a third option of universal jurisdiction may be
available for bringing claims against private parties that allegedly are responsible for
transboundary environmental harm. The Alien Tort Statute gives US courts
In the ﬁrst scenario (claims by private claimants against private entities
allegedly responsible for the pollution), it will depend on the applicable
national law whether claimants have access to a domestic court. There are
two options, either they can bring such claim in their own state or they can
bring such claim in the courts of the place where the responsible party
caused the harm. In the European system, at least for civil proceedings
based on tort claims, both options are open and the claimant can choose
the forum. Council Regulation (EC) 44/2001 on jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters provides that a person domiciled in a Member State may be sued in another
Member State ‘in matters relating to tort, delict or quasi delict, in the courts
for the place where the harmful event occurred or may occur’.15 Following
the judgment of the European Court of Justice in Bier, it is clear that the
defendant may be sued, at the option of the claimant, either in the courts
of the place where the damage occurred or in the courts of the place where
the source of the damage originated.16
It seems most convenient if the injured person(s) choose to litigate in
their ‘own’ courts against a foreign private defendant. Not only will the
costs be substantially lower (there is no need to call on foreign counsel), but
the victim may perhaps also expect his own courts to be more sympathetic
towards his claim than a foreign court would.
The question of whether injured persons have access to their own
courts is not governed by international law but by domestic law.17
However, at least emerging international law now provides for a right to
eﬀective access to judicial and administrative proceedings, including
redress and remedy.18
jurisdiction over civil claims based on violations of the law of nations. However, it
seems that cases of transboundary environmental harm do not belong to cases
covered by the jurisdictional provisions of the Alien Tort Statute; see US District
Court for the Southern District of New York, Amlon Metals v FMC Corp, 775 F
Supp 668 (SDNY 1991).
15 Council Regulation 44/2001, art. 5, para. 3, 2001 O.J. (L12) 1.
16 Case 21/76, Bier v Mines de Potasse d’Alsace, 1976 E.C.R. 1735, 1748–49
(interpreting the meaning of ‘the place where the harmful event occurred’ in art.
4(3) of the Convention of 27 September 1968).
17 Perhaps except for the case when transboundary environmental harm can be
construed as a human rights violation, triggering the right of access to a court; see
infra section 2.2.
18 Principle 12 of the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development,
Annex 1, UN Doc. A/CONF.151/26 (Vol. 1) (1993), available at http://www.
un.org/documents/ga/conf151/aconf15126-1annex1.htm. In Europe, of particular
relevance is art. 9 of the 1998 Aarhus Convention on Access to Information, Public
Participation in Decision Making and Access to Justice, 38 ILM (1999), 517.
The advantages of bringing a case in the own state of injured parties,
may be oﬀset by the problems of execution of judgments (in particular if
these would provide for injunctions, cessation or compensation) in the
defendant state. That problem may induce the claimant to litigate in the
courts of the state where the person causing the transboundary harm is
based. Moreover, the possibility that a claimant may sue in his own courts
may not be available at all when no speciﬁc treaty or other international
instrument like Council Regulation 44/2001 is applicable. In the absence of
such a treaty or other international instrument, the victim will often have
no other choice than to sue the defendant(s) before the courts of the defendant state, for in many cases the domestic conﬂict of laws rules will determine that only the courts of the state where the defendant resides or is
registered are competent.
If a claimant seeks to use a foreign court in the state where the damage
is caused, access may be problematic. But here there is at least emerging
international law that seeks to alleviate any limitations that may exist.
The principle of non-discriminatory access requires access to remedies in
the state where the source of the harm is located.19 It is included in the
Harm Arising out of Hazardous Activities, adopted by the International
Law Commission in 2006, providing that victims of transboundary
damage should have access to remedies in the state of origin that are no
less prompt, adequate and eﬀective than those available to victims
that suﬀer damage, from the same incident, within the territory of that
state.20
The second scenario in which a domestic court may provide a forum,
involves claims by a private claimant against the state under whose jurisdiction such harm was caused. This has not been a popular scenario in
practice. Claims in the courts of the claimant will usually be barred by
the immunity of the defendant state. The 2004 UN Convention on
Jurisdictional Immunities of States and their Property has not changed
this. Its exception for extra-territorial torts only applies if the tortfeaser was
present in the territory at the time of the act (e.g. torts caused by traﬃc accidents). The exception does not seem applicable to transfrontier harm like
See discussion in Birnie and Boyle (2002, pp. 269–275).
UN Int’l L. Comm’n, Draft Principles on the Allocation of Loss in the Case
of Transboundary Harm Arising out of Hazardous Activities, Report of the
International Law Commission on the Work of its Fifty-Eighth Session, at principle 6, para. 2, UN Doc. A/61/10 (2006)); see also UN Watercourses
Convention, G.A. Res. 51/229, art. 32, UN Doc. A/RES/51/229 (21 May 1997);
Boyle (2006).
climate change and a prospective litigant will have no eﬀective access to a
court.21
The only option then is to bring a claim in the courts of the foreign state.
Here the same limitations to access apply as in the case of litigation against
a private defendant in a foreign state. The ILC Principles are in principle also
applicable here.22 However, it is doubtful whether the principle requiring
access to remedies against the state is a principle of customary international
law. In many parts of the world, transboundary litigation against the state is
a non-starter. This was also evidenced by events following pollution of the
River Songhua that resulted in harm to Russian waters across the border.23
An additional barrier that may arise both in the situation where a claim
is brought in the state where the harm is caused or in the state where the
harm originates, is caused by the requirement of most legal systems that
particular victims should have a suﬃcient interest to ﬁle such a suit. Since
the damage caused by environmental harm may be widespread, this may be
an important restriction as far as the use of tort law is concerned. It is possible that the individual loss suﬀered by each individual victim is so small
that no particular victim has a suﬃcient interest to bring a claim. In such
cases, an NGO could represent all those who suﬀer a loss from environmental harm. Two distinct solutions may exist here: either the victims can
collectively act together in a so-called class action (provided that national
law allows this), or an NGO defending particular public interests may ﬁle
a claim. Many national and international legal documents now allow the
right of NGOs to ﬁle those claims, but strict conditions usually apply.24 For
21 United Nations Convention on Jurisdictional Immunities of States and Their
Property, art. 12, 44 ILM 803, UN Doc. A/RES/59/38 (2005) (providing: ‘Unless
otherwise agreed between the States concerned, a State cannot invoke immunity
from jurisdiction before a court of another State which is otherwise competent in a
proceeding which relates to pecuniary compensation for death or injury to the
person, or damage to or loss of tangible property, caused by an act or omission
which is alleged to be attributable to the State, if the act or omission occurred in
whole or in part in the territory of that other State and if the author of the act or
omission was present in that territory at the time of the act or omission’); see
also Hafner and Kohler (2004) (discussing the scope of the extra-territorial tort
exception in the UN Convention). See generally Fox (2002) (analysing the extraterritorial tort exception).
22 UN Int’l L. Comm’n, Draft Principles on the Allocation of Loss in the Case
International Law Commission on the Work of its Fifty-Eighth Session, at principle 6, para. 2, UN Doc. A/61/10 (2006).
23 Supra text to note 10.
24 McCormick (2005), discussing NGO litigation and monitoring of environmental law implementation.
instance, if national law allows NGO claims in civil law at all, the NGO
must often demonstrate that it has existed for a substantial number of years
and that it clearly stipulated the speciﬁc protected interest as a goal in its
articles of incorporation.25 Moreover, most national laws hold that the
NGO may make claims for injunctions, but not for damages.26 Hence, the
choice of the victim has relevance for the remedy as well.
The principle of non-discriminatory access is applicable here as well, but
complications may arise in view of the question whether the foreign legal
system recognizes the legal status and procedural rights that have been
accorded by the state in which the NGO was set up.27
A second option, complementing resort to domestic courts, is that private
persons who are injured by transboundary harm seek redress in an international human rights court. Though not a generally accepted right, a
decent or healthy environment exists as a human right,28 under now familiar interpretations of the right to private life and perhaps the right to life,
international human rights courts may consider that environmental harm
constitutes an infringement of an international human right, in particular
25 For the locus standi of environmental organizations, see Betlem (1993,
pp. 305–343).
26 Betlem (1993), supra note 25, at 497 (discussing a few exceptional cases in
which NGOs were also awarded damages, for instance with respect to ‘bird cleanup’ costs).
27 In Europe, some harmonization is now achieved through the European
Convention on the Recognition of the Legal Personality of International NonGovernmental Organizations, Strasbourg, 24 April, 1986, Explanatory Report,
Doc. No. 124 (1986), available at http://conventions.coe.int/Treaty/en/Treaties/
Html/124.htm.
28 Birnie and Boyle (2002, pp. 254–259). But this is diﬀerent at regional level, in
particular in Africa: see art. 24 of the African Charter on Human and People’s
Rights, 21 ILM 58. The African Commission noted in Communication 155/96
(The Social and Economic Rights Action Center for Economic and Social Rights v
Nigeria) that ‘the right to a general satisfactory environment, as guaranteed under
Article 24 of the African Charter or the right to a healthy environment, as it is
widely known, therefore imposes clear obligations upon a government. It requires
the State to take reasonable and other measures to prevent pollution and ecological degradation, to promote conservation, and to secure an ecologically sustainable
development and use of natural resources’. See also art. 18 of the Protocol to the
African Charter on Human and People’s Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa.
(proclaiming that ‘Women shall have the right to live in a healthy and sustainable
environment’), available at http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/africa/protocolwomen2003.html.
the right to life and the right to the private sphere of applicants.29 As to the
latter, the ECtHR noted that ‘in order to fall within the scope of Article 8,
complaints relating to environmental nuisances have to show, ﬁrstly, that
there was an actual interference with the applicant’s private sphere, and,
secondly, that a level of severity was attained’.30
Claims based on human rights treaties are necessarily directed against the
state responsible for such pollution, not against private entities. At least
before international human rights courts (the situation may be diﬀerent in
domestic law) no ‘horizontal claims’ against responsible private parties can
be made. In those cases where the harm was caused by a private party rather
than by the state, a claim may still be possible if it could be shown that the
state, by allowing such harm or by not eﬀectively acting against it, violated
its own obligations under the treaty in question.31 Thus, a claim may be
directed against a state that would for instance grant a licence to a polluting
industrial facility, or fail to enforce its laws to seek to prevent pollution.32
Access to human rights courts will generally be limited to rather speciﬁc
situations. Apart from the fact that the environmental harm should be of
such a nature that it can qualify as an interference with a human right,
essentially two limitations apply.
First, the jurisdiction of human rights courts will be limited to cases
involving injury to claimants who were under the jurisdiction of the state
causing the harm. Under the generally accepted constructions of the
concept of jurisdiction, it is highly doubtful that the causing of pollution
by or from state A to a private person in state B would bring that latter
person under the jurisdiction of state A.33 The act of causing pollution in
a foreign state cannot be interpreted as an exercise of jurisdiction. This
Birnie and Boyle (2002, pp. 259–261).
ECtHR, Fadeyeva v Russia (A. No. 55723/00), para. 70.
31 ECtHR, Fadeyeva v Russia (A. No. 55723/00), para. 89, noting that ‘at the
material time, the Severstal steel plant was not owned, controlled, or operated by
the State. Consequently, the Court considers that the Russian Federation cannot be
said to have directly interfered with the applicant’s private life or home. At the same
time, the Court points out that the State’s responsibility in environmental cases may
arise from a failure to regulate private industry’. Accordingly, the applicant’s complaints fall to be analysed in terms of a positive duty on the State to take reasonable and appropriate measures to secure the applicant’s rights under art. 8, section
32 In Fadeyeva v Russia (A. F76), the Court formulated the standard as: ‘the
Court’s ﬁrst task is to assess whether the State could reasonably be expected to act
so as to prevent or put an end to the alleged infringement of the applicant’s rights’
33 Cf. ECtHR, Banković and Others v Belgium and 16 Other Contracting States
(A. No. 52207/99), Decision of 19 December 2001. But see Birnie and Boyle (2002,
means that foreign victims in principle cannot petition a human rights
court for harm caused abroad by a state that did not exercise jurisdiction
over the victim. This requirement makes it unlikely that there will be an
overlap in party structure with transboundary litigation against a state
before a domestic court.
The only option left, then, is that the claim is brought not by the
persons in the foreign state, but by persons in the foreign state who (also)
may be aﬀected by the environmental harm or who have an interest (for
instance NGOs) in seeking redress for such harm. An example of a
(failed) attempt to bring a claim to a human rights courts in a case of
mixed (partly domestic, partly transboundary) environmental harm is a
claim brought by the Inuit Circumpolar Conference, representing 150,000
people in northern Alaska, Canada, Russia and Greenland, which ﬁled
a claim against the United States with the Inter-American Human
Rights Commission. The claim was based, inter alia, on alleged breach of
rights of indigenous peoples, the right to a healthy environment, and the
rights of people to freely dispose of their natural wealth and resources
under the Inter-American Convention on Human Rights (IACHR).
However, the claim was not considered by the Commission, because it
found that the information submitted did not enable the Commission to
determine whether the alleged facts could be characterized as a violation
of the IACHR.34
The second limitation is that in any case in the European system access
is limited by the condition that claims can only be brought by or on behalf
of individual victims of such environmental harm.35 However, no similar
requirement exists in the African system, which allows for a broad standing, the reason being the practical diﬃculties that individuals who may wish
to bring a complaint face in many African states.36 The situation is similar
in the Inter-American System.37
pp. 265–266) (arguing that ‘if states are responsible for their failure to control soldiers and judges abroad, they may likewise be held responsible for their failure to
control transboundary pollution and environmental harm caused by activities
within their own territory’).
34 Letter from Ariel Dulitzky, Assistant Executive Secretary, Inter-American
Commission of Human Rights, to Paul Crowley, Legal Representative, Barrister
and Solicitor, Canada (16 November 2006), http://graphics 8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/science/16commissionletter.pdf.
35 Art. 34 of the ECHR; see discussion in Jacobs and White (2006,
pp. 482–484).
36 Art. 56 of the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights, supra note 28;
see discussion in Viljoen (2002, pp. 75–76).
37 Art. 46 of the American Convention on Human Rights, 1144 UNTS 123.
Forums for interstate claims
The third option is that claims seeking reparation for transboundary environmental harm are brought by a state where the harm is caused against a
state under whose jurisdiction the harm originated. A state can present
such claims for direct injury, that is, injury to the state itself, for instance its
territory, including its ecosystems or its infrastructure. However, it can also
present such claims for injury caused to its nationals, based on the ﬁction
that harm to an individual can be qualiﬁed as harm to the state of which
that individual is a national.38 In cases of transboundary environmental
harm, interstate claims will rarely exclusively concern protection of rights
of nationals as it is likely that there will also be direct injury to the state.
However, at least in theory, the protection of rights of nationals does represent a separate basis of the claim.
Claims based on diplomatic protection are not normally brought in a
court, but presented through diplomatic means.39 However, the possibility
that a claim is presented before an international court or tribunal is not
excluded and at least in theory there is a large variety of international
courts and tribunals where interstate claims can be presented.40 These
include the International Court of Justice, if it would have jurisdiction on
the basis of a special agreement between the two states involved, on the
basis of Article 36(2) of the ICJ Statute or on the basis of a jurisdictional
basis in a treaty pertaining to environmental harm that applies to the incident in question. An example of the latter option is the claim brought by
Argentina against Uruguay in connection with the pulp mills dispute.41 An
alternative may be claims before an arbitral tribunal, illustrated by the
claim by Ireland against the United Kingdom in connection with the
radioactive pollution of the Irish Sea before an arbitral tribunal set up
under the Law of the Sea Convention.42
38 ILC, Commentaries on the Draft Articles on Diplomatic Protection with
commentaries 2006, para. 3, available at http://untreaty.un.org/ilc/texts/
instruments/english/commentaries/9_8_2006.pdf.
39 Cf. art. 1 of the Draft Articles on Diplomatic Protection with commentaries
2006: ‘For the purposes of the present draft articles, diplomatic protection consists
of the invocation by a State, through diplomatic action or other means of peaceful
settlement, of the responsibility of another State for an injury caused by an internationally wrongful act of that State to a natural or legal person that is a national
of the former State with a view to the implementation of such responsibility’.
40 See generally Romano (2007a).
41 Supra note 5. The jurisdiction was based on art. 60 of the Statute of the River
Uruguay (1975), UNTS (1982) nr. 21425.
42 Dispute concerning access to information under art. 9 of the OSPAR
Convention (Ireland v United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland),
While interstate claims may well be an option to provide eﬀective relief
and result, for instance, in termination of a polluting activity or compensation (after all, the state may have much more leverage and power to
achieve a result than a single private claimant), it is not an option that is
at the disposal of private injured parties. Diplomatic protection is not a
right of the national but a right of the state. Under international law and
under most domestic legal systems, individuals have no right to compel a
state to exercise diplomatic protection.43 The right to bring a claim belongs
to the state. Moreover, if the state would be successful in claiming compensation, such compensation would fall to the state and private persons
who have suﬀered loss are not entitled to (part of) that compensation.44
Nonetheless, there may be an overlap and connection with litigation
options available to private parties, as a result of the principle of exhaustion of local remedies.45
Non-judicial fora
Apart from the three categories of judicial proceedings discussed above,
there may be, depending on the circumstances, a variety of alternative procedures by which private persons can seek some form of reparation. In the
pulp mills dispute, these include complaints submitted to the Oﬃce of
Compliance Advisor/Ombudsman (CAO), an independent recourse mechanism for the International Finance Corporation and the Multilateral
Investment Guarantee Agency,46 so-called Speciﬁc Instances against three
European-based multinationals involved in the project for alleged breaches
of the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises,47 and a complaint
against two investment banks for supporting the project, alleging that it
would violate the so-called Equator principles, an agreement between international banks in which they promise to invest responsibly and respect
Final Award, available at http://www.pca-cpa.org/upload/ﬁles/OSPAR%20A
ward.pdf.
43 Note though that in several states domestic courts have accepted that they
can exercise some form of judicial review over the (discretionary) exercise by a state
of its right to bring a claim; see Vermeer-Künzli (2006).
44 But see art. 19(c) of the ILC Articles on Diplomatic Protection, recommending that ‘A State entitled to exercise diplomatic protection according to the
present draft articles, should . . . transfer to the injured person any compensation
obtained for the injury from the responsible State subject to any reasonable
deductions.’
45 Infra text to notes 53–54.
46 Supra note 7.
environmental safeguards.48 In other instances, resort to supervisory
procedures established under international environmental agreements may
be an option.49
While such options do not result in legally binding outcomes, they may
result in forms of accountability that serve the interests of claimants. They
may result for instance in an authoritative statement that a particular act
resulting in, or contributing to, transboundary environmental harm was in
conﬂict with an international obligation or that a contested project would
result in signiﬁcant environmental harm – irrespective of the applicability
of any particular obligation. Findings under such procedures may, irrespective of their legal status, in part as a result of the impact on public
opinion, induce parties to stop the act that may contribute to cases of transboundary environmental harm. An illustration of this is the decision of the
Dutch bank ING to pull out of the funding of the Uruguay pulp mills following reports, triggered by NGOs, of the environmental eﬀects of the pulp
mills. In that respect such non-judicial forms may indeed be complementary and even present an alternative to judicial procedures.50
FORMAL CONNECTIONS BETWEEN THE
The various procedures described above are relatively, but not fully,
autonomous. In principle, between domestic procedures as well as between
international procedures, no formal connections exist. However, between
international and domestic options certain rules of hierarchy may regulate
the order in which such options are pursued.
As to domestic options, international law does not establish any form of
hierarchy between them. Every court that is entitled to exercise jurisdiction
(under domestic law, but always within the limits of international law) is
entitled to do so. General international law does not grant priority to either
the court where the harm materialized or the court where the harm is
caused. No rule of international law would dictate that one procedure
would have to wait for the other. It depends on domestic law whether
certain allocation rules apply, for instance the forum non conveniens. In this
Fitzmaurice and Redgwell (2000).
50 Press release: ‘ING Group of Netherlands pulls out of controversial papermill while World Bank postpones loans following critical review of environmental
impact studies’: http://www.cedha.org.ar/en/more_information/ing-postponesloans.php.
respect, parallel litigation is certainly an option, as was illustrated in the
Potassium Mines case where litigation simultaneously proceeded in Dutch
and French courts.51
Between the international options, under general international law no
rules on allocation of competence exist either. International law does not
dictate that a procedure before the ICJ should wait for a procedure before
the ECHR or vice versa. The procedures are independent, unless, of course,
parties have speciﬁcally agreed otherwise and notwithstanding the possibility that courts themselves have developed certain principles of allocation
or restraint, such as comity.52
The situation is diﬀerent for the relationship between domestic procedures on the one hand and international procedures on the other.53
International human rights procedures are contingent on a prior exhaustion of local remedies and are thus in principle only available when the litigants have exhausted the claims that may exist under domestic law against
the state.54 This makes it unlikely that there can be parallel litigation of the
same human rights claim in a domestic and an international court (assuming that there is a case where an injured claimant was under the jurisdiction
of the responsible state).
In principle, the requirement of exhaustion of local remedies also applies
in case of interstate claims based on diplomatic protection.55 However, precisely in cases of transboundary harm, an exception may apply. The 2006
Articles on Diplomatic Protection provide that local remedies do not need
to be exhausted when there is no relevant connection between the injured
person and the state.56 The Commentary states on this point that it would
be ‘unreasonable and unfair to require an injured person to exhaust local
remedies where his property has suﬀered environmental harm caused by
pollution, radioactive fallout or a fallen space object emanating from a
State in which his property is not situated; or where he is on board an aircraft that is shot down while in overﬂight of another State’s territory’.57
It is somewhat uncertain whether this exception is a part of positive
Lammers (1989).
MOX Plant, Annex VII Arbitral Tribunal Order No. 4 (14 November 2003)
(suspending proceedings until the ECJ has given judgment). See for a discussion of
various principles of allocation of jurisdiction between international courts, Shany
53 See generally, Shany (2007).
54 Art. 35(1) of the ECHR; art. 46(1)(a) IACHR; art. 50 African Charter.
55 Art. 14 of the 2006 ILC Draft Articles on Diplomatic Protection.
56 Art. 15(c) of the 2006 ILC Draft Articles on Diplomatic Protection.
57 http://untreaty.un.org/ilc/texts/instruments/english/commetaries/9_8_2006.
pdf, p. 81, para. 7.
international law. Whereas in several environmental cases, including the
Trail Smelter case,58 the defendant state did not insist on exhaustion of
local remedies, it may be that this can be explained by the fact that they
provide examples of direct injury, in which local remedies do not need to
be exhausted.59 If we nonetheless assume that Article 15(c) as adopted by
the ILC indeed represents the state of the law, there may not be a barrier
against simultaneous proceedings at domestic level in the defendant state
and an action based on diplomatic protection.
THE SEPARATE RESPONSIBILITY OF THE
In case litigation is directed against a multiplicity of responsible parties
(e.g. a private industrial facility, a state with jurisdiction over that facility,
perhaps also an international investment bank), the responsibility of each
of these parties in principle will be separate and autonomous.
To the extent that multiple parties may be responsible under international law, each party involved will be responsible for its own acts or omissions. A determination that one party is or is not responsible in principle
will be without prejudice to the responsibility of the other parties involved.
Even when two parties, by separate wrongful acts, contribute to the same
damage, the responsibilities are separate.60 An example would be a case
where two states, separate from each other, cause pollution of an international waterway. It may also happen that one state would assist another
state in causing a situation of transboundary harm (e.g. by building an
industrial facility in the latter state that then will cause pollution of a river).
Both situations may give rise to the responsibility of both states, but the
basis and extent of their responsibility is separate. In the ﬁrst example both
states may have breached an obligation to prevent transboundary pollution, whereas in the latter example one of the states may be responsible for
assisting another state in breaching that obligation.61 A similar situation
might arise in case of aid given by an international organization to a state.
58 Trail Smelter Arbitration (United States v Canada), 3 R. Int’l Arb. Awards
1911 (1938), reprinted in 33 AJIL182 (1939), 3 R. Int’l Arb. Awards 1938 (1941),
reprinted in 35 AJIL 684 (1941).
59 http://untreaty.un.org/ilc/texts/instruments/english/commentaries/9_8_2006.
60 Art. 47 of the Articles on State Responsibility, Annex of UN Doc. A/Res/56/
83 of 28 January 2002.
61 Art. 16 of the Articles on State Responsibility.
In such cases (which would seem to cover most instances where an
organization could be held responsible in cases of transboundary harm),
the organization could not be held responsible for the harm as such, but for
the aid given.62 The responsibility of the organization does not formally
imply or exclude the responsibility of the state, or vice versa.
This is of course also true if diﬀerent defendants (industrial facility, state,
international organization etc.) operate within separate legal orders.
Responsibility of a state under domestic law is without prejudice to the
state’s responsibility in international law and vice versa. Obviously the
responsibility (or lack thereof) of a private facility under domestic law does
not tell us anything about the responsibility of the state that may have condoned its polluting activities under international law.
A further illustration of this principle is the fact that when a state acts in
conformity with its obligations under an international agreement and on
that basis will not be responsible under international law, the state may well
be responsible under domestic (tort) law. Moreover, an industrial facility
that acts in accordance with legislation that implements the obligations
may well be responsible under domestic law for its role in transboundary
It could be argued that as long as a state, or a private facility, under
domestic law follows the standards mandated by a regulation or a permit
that gives eﬀect to an international obligation, they should be freed from
liability under domestic law. This argument is a variant (distinguishing
itself by the fact that here the origin of the regulation is an international
obligation) of the often discussed ‘regulatory compliance defence’.
However, while some argue in favour,63 there are strong opponents against
such a regulatory compliance defence.64
In cases not involving international law, domestic legal systems seem to
deny such a defence. For instance, the notion that industry would be freed
from liability as long as a regulatory standard is followed is ﬁrmly rejected
in Belgium.65 The idea is that the administrative authority, when granting
a licence and setting permit conditions, cannot take into account the possible harm that the licenced activity might cause to all possible third parties.
Third party rights to compensation for damages, therefore, may not be
impaired simply because the operator of a plant followed the conditions of
Draft art. 12 of the draft articles on the A/60/10, Ch. VI, pp. 192–206 at p. 96.
See Bergkamp (2001, pp. 239–258), arguing that if polluters ﬁrst have to
comply with the conditions of a licence and subsequently still can be held liable for
damages, they have to ‘pay twice’.
64 See, e.g., Wenneras (2005).
65 For further details see Faure (1999, p. 203).
a licence. Meeting the conditions of a permit is just a minimum. A plant
owner has to take all possible precautions as required by tort law in order
to avoid causing harm to third parties through his licensed activity. Also, in
the Netherlands, the question of whether following the conditions of a
licence would have a justiﬁcative eﬀect in tort has been answered in the negative.66 An exception would exist only if the interests of the potential
victims were clearly taken into account when the conditions of the permit
were set.67 This point is made clear in the decision of the Dutch Supreme
Court that dealt with pollution caused by potassium mining in the Alsace
region of France.68 The potassium mine owners argued that the emissions
were within the limits set by their permit and, therefore, not illegal. The
court, however, judged that the licence had not taken into account the
potential harmful eﬀects of the emissions for third parties and thus could
not release the potassium mines from liability.
It seems that the situation is the same in a case where domestic regulation is based on international law (or in a case where an international legal
regulation applies directly). Although regulatory compliance may play
some role in assessing liability, following regulations is merely a minimum.
It might perhaps only play a role in exceptional cases where all the interests
have been weighed ex ante and the potential victim’s damage was taken
into account when the administrative conditions were set. But when a
domestic regulation is based on and gives eﬀect to an international agreement, this is a rather unlikely scenario. In that respect, it seems that the
non-responsibility of a state based on the fact that it complied with international law is without prejudice to its liability under domestic law, or to
the liability of private actors that may have acted in compliance with standards based on the international agreement.
THE LIMITED SCOPE OF THE APPLICABLE LAW
A further feature of the co-existence of multiple options for potential
claimants is that generally each option will consider only part of the
66 Banketbakker Krul/Joosstens, Hoge Raad der Nederlanden [HR] [Supreme
Court of the Netherlands], 30 January 1914, NJ 497 (Neth.); Vermeulen/
Lekkerkerker, Hoge Raad der Nederlanden [HR] [Supreme Court of the
Netherlands], 10 March 1972, NJ 278 (ann. G.J. Scholten) (Neth.).
67 Rus-Van der Velde (1989); Nieuwenhuis (1991).
68 Mines de Potasse d’Alsace S.A. (MDPA) v Onroerend Goed Maatschappij
Bier B.V. et al., Hoge Raad der Nederlanden [HR] [Supreme Court of the
Netherlands], 23 September 1988, 21 NETH. Y.B. INT’L L. 434 (1990).
normative spectrum that may be applicable to actors who are responsible
for transboundary environmental harm. A state that causes transboundary
environmental harm may at the same time act in breach of its domestic law,
of foreign law that may be applicable, of an international human rights
treaty, of one or more environmental treaties and of general international
law. However, it is unlikely that all these (potential) causes of action can be
considered by a single court.
Domestic courts generally will only be entitled to apply the domestic law
that is applicable to a (allegedly) responsible party. Human rights courts
will only consider human rights law that may be applicable to the event.
Interstate courts will only consider those rules of international law over
which they have jurisdiction, and so on. While a defendant state may in fact
have breached domestic law, human rights law and interstate obligations
pertaining to the environmental harm, the determination of such breaches
and the consequences thereof can only be pursued in various courts and
tribunals, each with a limited jurisdiction. However, some courts may be
inclined to reach out beyond their narrow conﬁnes, incorporate bodies of
law that really belong to another domain, and ‘undo’ the eﬀects of the fragmented organization of the litigation options.
In domestic cases, the applicable law will primarily be domestic law, with
the law of the forum determining whether that is the domestic law of the
forum state or of the state where the harm originated. International law is
neutral in principle on the applicable law in domestic proceedings, though
this may be subject to the (emerging) requirement that they should provide
for eﬀective redress in cases of transboundary environmental harm.69
Domestic courts may consider international human rights law and interstate obligations where that is allowed under the constitutional law of the
state in question and in some cases also under judicially invented doctrines
that would allow courts to consider rules that are not part of domestic law
at all or perhaps not even binding on the state.70 Also, international (environmental) law may then be relevant as a basis for claims.71 This may allow
them to overcome limitations in the applicable law and to consider a wider
part of the normative spectrum.
There are obvious barriers against such an approach. International
obligations to protect the environment apply between states. Citizens in
principle cannot bring a claim based on a breach of a treaty obligation by
a defendant state, nor could the victim of climate change directly base tort
Principle 6 of the Draft Articles of the Allocation of Loss, supra note 20.
Knop (2000).
Generally, Anderson and Galizzi (2002).
liability of private parties that caused such harm on the violation of treaty
obligations since these only bind states.72
However, the inﬂuence of international law on domestic liability is not to
be excluded. International environmental law can be used as elements in the
interpretation of the domestic law on which a claim is based. In tort cases,
international law arguably may be relevant in giving substance to what ‘due
care’ requires.73 In cases involving the exercise of administrative discretion,
it can also be used as one of the bases to review such exercise. In a number
of cases, courts have held that international law should be taken into
account in the application of the principles of administrative review.
Whether a rule of international law has direct eﬀect or not is immaterial.
Thus, it was ruled that the regional executive authority of the province of
Gelderland in the Netherlands had acted ‘unreasonably’ by approving a
zoning plan that threatened the habitat of the combed salamander, which
was protected by the 1979 Bern Convention.74 The unreasonableness was
partly based on the province’s neglect of the Convention provisions.75 This
method may enable national courts to assess compliance with the Bern
Convention without the courts having to solve the problem that the
Convention only regulated the rights and duties of states.
Relying on international law in cases involving transboundary environmental harm may be easier where environmental harm can be construed as
a human rights violation, a situation that in many cases (but in no means
all – China and the United States being notable examples of states where
this will not be possible) will allow the claimant to rely on international
human rights law to protect their interest.
Also, in human rights courts the applicable law is naturally limited –
namely to the law contained in the treaty by which they were established.
For instance, Article 32 of the ECHR provides that ‘The jurisdiction of the
Court shall extend to all matters concerning the interpretation and application of the Convention and the protocols thereto’ – not more, but also
not less. Nonetheless, human rights courts have been willing, under the
doctrine that the conventions should be interpreted in the light of general
international law, to also consider other rules of international law, for
instance those imposing obligations to protect the environment on states.76
That may be relevant in determining whether certain interferences with
Bodansky and Brunnée (1998).
Nollkaemper (1998).
74 Convention on the Conservation of European Wildlife and Natural Habitats,
available at http://conventions.coe.int/Treaty/en/Treaties/Html/104.htm.
75 Afd. G.R. v S., 22 April 1991, AB 1991, 592.
76 Al-Adsani v the United Kingdom, (A. No. 35763/97), para. 55.
individual rights are pursued for a legitimate objective.77 For instance, while
a state may argue that a polluting facility is necessary to supply energy to
the population and as such would qualify as a legitimate objective that may
justify an interference, the fact that the operation of such a facility would
violate an international legal obligation, might undermine that argument.
Interstate claims would generally concern an international claim. That is,
the claim would be based on an alleged violation of an international obligation, engaging the international responsibility of the wrongdoing state.
While there may be a variety of international rules that could be relevant
as a basis for such a claim, whether such rules can be applicable law depends
fully on the jurisdiction of the court or tribunal. It is very rare that an
international court would be allowed, in a case involving transboundary
environmental harm, to consider the full spectrum of international
(environmental) law that determines the full scope of obligations of the
wrongdoing state.
THE LIMITED SCOPE OF APPLICABLE
SECONDARY RULES OF RESPONSIBILITY
What has been said on the limitation of the applicable law also applies to a
certain extent to the applicable (secondary) principles of responsibility.
This holds in any case for the distinction between domestic and international options. Each will apply its own rules on liability or responsibility.
To some extent that also may be true between various international
courts.78 It is arguable, though, that the secondary rules of international
law, that are applicable to breaches of rules of international law as these
may be considered by domestic courts, human rights courts or international courts, should be applicable in all cases involving claims based on
international law, irrespective of the forum.
At the domestic level, each state will have its own liability regime.
International law has created, at least for transboundary claims, some
minimum standards. Based on the recognition that access is irrelevant if the
state chooses to make no provision for liability, denies any remedy, or
confers immunity on defendants, and building upon the 1992 Rio
Declaration79 and work of the International Law Association (ILA),80 the
Al-Adsani, supra note 76, para. 54.
Gray (1999).
79 Supra note 18.
80 International Law Association London Conference (2000), Committee on
Water Resources Law, Campione Consolidation of the International Law Association
draft liability principles adopted by the ILC propose a minimum standard
of timely and eﬀective redress. Principle 3 sets out that the draft principles
aim ‘to ensure prompt and adequate compensation to victims of transboundary damage’ and Principle 4 provides that ‘Each State should take all
necessary measures to ensure that prompt and adequate compensation is
available for victims of transboundary damage caused by hazardous activities located within its territory or otherwise under its jurisdiction or
control’.81 However, the requirement to provide timely and eﬀective redress
does not apply to claims against the state. The principles envisage primarily that claims are brought against the operator. Although the state should,
if this is insuﬃcient to provide adequate compensation, ensure that
additional ﬁnancial resources are made available, no liability on the state is
prescribed.82
Claims in domestic courts are not in principle subject to principles of
international responsibility as these apply in international courts. It was a
rare case when the District Court of Rotterdam in the Netherlands, in adjudicating claims of Dutch farmers who had suﬀered damage as a result
of discharges of chlorides into the River Rhine by French mines near
Strasburg, based its conclusion that a tort had been committed directly on
the general principle of (international) law that a wrongful act entails
responsibility.83 The normal construction is to provide redress for violations of international law in transboundary civil litigations through the
application of domestic law and to give eﬀect to international law in the
application of domestic (liability) law.
It can be argued, however, that in their application, primary and
secondary norms are interdependent and normatively inseparable, and that
all courts called upon to adjudicate a claim based on international law,
should operate within that framework. This approach is supported by
international case law in which it has been held that if a claim is based on
international law, international principles of responsibility are automatically applicable. The Annulment Committee in the Vivendi case drew a distinction between claims under domestic law, which were governed by
domestic principles of attribution, and claims based on a treaty, to which
international secondary principles apply. It said:
Rules on International Water Resources 1966–1999, art. 51 (2000), available at
http://www.ila-hq.org/pdf/Water%20Resources/Water%20Res%20Report%202000.
81 Supra note 20.
82 Principle 4(5) of the Draft Principles on the Allocation of Loss.
83 See District Court of Rotterdam, 8 January 1979, NJ 1979, nr. 113, Id., 16
December 1983, NJ 1984, nr. 341.
in the case of a claim based on a treaty, international law rules of attribution
apply, with the result that the state of Argentina is internationally responsible
for the acts of its provincial authorities. By contrast, the state of Argentina is
not liable for the performance of contracts entered into by Tucumán, which possesses separate legal personality under its own law and is responsible for the performance of its own contracts.84
It is arguable that the proposition that there is a fundamental connection
between a claim based on international law and the applicability of secondary principles of responsibility is applicable not only in courts with
jurisdiction over interstate claims, but also in human rights courts and even
in domestic courts. For even when the rule of international law on which
the claim is based is incorporated in domestic law, it does retain its international character.85
THE COMPLEMENTARY NATURE OF THE
Although, as has been discussed above, the various options that may be
open to litigants in principle are independent from each other, they can be
complementary in several respects. First, the options can be complementary since, as discussed in section 2, injured parties may have access to some
procedures but not to others. If the aim is to provide redress for all injured
parties (private parties and states), a combination of complementary
options will be necessary.
Secondly, since many procedures are limited to certain defendants, it may
be necessary to pursue several procedures to achieve remedies vis-à-vis all
relevant parties. For instance, in the pulp mills dispute, action in the ICJ or
the IACHR could not result in a remedy for the two multinationals or the
investment banks involved, and action under the OECD Guidelines could
84 ICSID, Vivendi v Argentina, Decision on Annulment, 2002 ICSID, 41 ILM
1135, 96 (3 July 2002). Similarly, a UK court held that when an arbitral tribunal
addressed the rights of a private party Occidental Exploration & Production Co
(OEPC) in international law vis-à-vis Ecuador, ‘It must follow . . . that if the tribunal
concluded that international law rights of OEPC had been violated by Ecuador, or
the latter was in breach of its international law obligations, then the tribunal will
have to consider what remedies are available in international law to repair any damage
caused to OEPC by Ecuador’s breach of OEPC’s international law rights’ (emphasis added); High Court of Justice, Queens Bench Division, Commercial Court, per
Mr Justice Aikens, The Republic of Ecuador v Occidental Exploration & Production
Co, 2 February 2006; [2006] EWHC 345 (Comm), para. 122.
85 This argument is further developed in Nollkaemper (2007)