환경보건법상 징벌적 손해배상제도의 개선방안에 대한 고찰

Health problems due to environmental pollution or environmental hazardous factors have special features as follows. Firstly, the symptom doesn't show up immediately but appears after a long time of accumulation. Secondly, the damage can appear very broadly since a lot of people are indirectly exposed to the sources. Lastly, after the disease reveals it’s symptoms it is almost impossible to recover your health perfectly. These are the reasons why the 'principle of prevention' is more important than ever in this field. In this context, punitive damages system has been implemented in Article 19, Paragraph 2 of the Environmental Health Act since June 13, 2019. If hazardous factors produced during business processes cause environmental disease and it is done intentionally or by gross negligence, they should be liable for punitive damages within three times the amount of real damages. However if there is difficulty in using this system or if it does not have a great effect, there is a high possibility that the system will fall into a shameful one. Therefore, continuous improvement is necessary in order to maintain the purpose of punitive damages system. In that sense, I pointed out the limitations of the punitive damages system in the current Environmental Health Act and suggested some future tasks. Firstly, considering the specificity of the environmental health sector, it is necessary to reconsider raising the limit of compensation. The problem of excess relief for victims can be solved through the formation of public funds. Secondly, legislation that presumes causality only with probability is necessary because it is unable for the victim to prove the individual causality between harmful factors and environmental diseases under the case law that classifies disease into 'specific disease' and 'non-specific disease'. In this way, the court can make an attempt to alleviate the causal relationship between environmentally harmful factors and environmental diseases.