환경침해에 따른 손해배상 요건에 관한 고찰 ― 각국의 입법을 중심으로 ―

The legal issues related to civil liability for environmental violations have been reviewed focusing on legislative examples of each country up to now. Overall, in consideration of the growing importance of the environment over the past few decades and the specificity of environmental violations, considerable progress has been made in legal responses to environmental violations. First of all, according to the limitations of the existing tort legal system under the Civil Act, the Environmental Act has improved its ability to respond to civil law by amending it. First, they are trying to protect victims in their own way by specifying the environmental infringer as “the owner of the facility” or “the operator” or by defining the “cause”. Second, with respect to the principle of negligence under the Civil Act, by recognizing “non-fault liability”, the specificity of environmental infringement is reflected. Third, in order to relieve the difficulty of proving the victim under the Civil Act, if there is a “significant probability” in the Civil Act itself or in the Environmental Act, it is assumed that the environmental pollution damage occurred due to the facility, “the causal relationship”. Fourth, special cases are allowed for the scope of compensation for damage to life, bodily harm or property under the Civil Act. Next, in order for the civil damage compensation system for environmental damage to function properly, it is overcoming the limitations of civil response through various complementary systems, including the information claim system, and administrative and criminal responsibilities. As described above, the civil law response and the development of complementary systems have been reviewed, but in the future, institutional improvements such as the improvement of the environment-related class action system and the establishment of an environmental court should be made.