Perceived justice of ecological policy and proenvironmental commitments

A model was outlined (i) to explain readiness to proenvironmental commitments and decisions in everyday life by six categories of predictor variables, including justice appraisals of pollution control, basic rights, appraisals of pollution, of pollution causation, of the efficacy of pollution control measures, and of ecological responsibility, and (ii) to generate hypotheses on the relationships between the predictor variables. Model variables were assessed by a questionnaire study (N=518) referring to the problem of air pollution. Proenvironmental commitments and decisions could be well predicted by morally relevant appraisals, especially by justice appraisals (e.g., approving proenvirommental laws, taxes, and subsidies, rejecting the justice of the current environmental policy and of mere appeals), whereas predictors representing self-protective motivations remained insignificant. Justice appraisals are in line with the “causation principle of justice”: Those who caused the pollution are made responsible for its reduction and should pay the costs for the pollution control. Results demonstrate that justice appraisals are essential determinants of people's ecologically relevant emotions, cognitions, and engagements. Moreover, they reveal that the responsibility for pollution control is not left with state and economy but is also regarded as a matter that concerns the citizens.     

《海诉法》中的直诉保险人制度

针对目前《海诉法》第97条的适用范围,从三个方面进行分析:在实体法中未规定保险人直接向受损害人支付保险赔款的义务时,受损害人直接向保险人提出的赔偿请求因没有实体法支持而无法实现;责任保险中,除法律的规定和保险合同的约定外,责任保险的保险人无义务直接向被保险人以外的第三人履行保险合同项下支付赔款的义务;中国目前的法律中对于直接诉讼保险人是设有条件的,尚无受损害人可以不受任何条件制约就可直接向保险人提出索赔的法律规定,并得出结论:《海诉法》第97条目前仅应适用于《1992年民事责任公约》规定适用的油污责任保险。     

新过失论对我国环境污染犯罪立法完善的影响

刑修(八)对重大环境污染罪进行修改,通过实行行为前置使该罪由结果犯变为危险犯,由过失犯变为故意犯,虽然强化了对环境污染犯罪的刑法规制,但依照我国刑法贯彻的旧过失论,没有惩处过失危险犯的空间,因此仍然存在环境法益刑法保护不足与环境污染犯罪化需求间的矛盾。有必要借鉴德日刑法中通行的新过失论,强化风险社会中行为人的结果避免义务,为惩处环境污染犯罪的过失犯提供理论支持。     

我国环境污染犯罪刑事责任制度的价值取向

随着环境污染犯罪的日益繁多和复杂,我国环境污染犯罪刑事责任制度存在亟待解决的问题,我国环境污染犯罪刑事责任制度的价值取向是遏制环境污染犯罪,促进社会可持续发展,建设生态文明社会,保护生态自然环境和保护公民环境权。     

Upset over Air Pollution: Analyzing Upset Event Emissions at Petroleum Refineries

The Clean Air Act (CAA) controls routine emissions at petroleum refineries, by creating limits and penalties for excess emissions. The CAA offers provisions for upset events, air emissions released because of unforeseen or unavoidable circumstances, if companies report the emissions and take corrective action. States enforce upset event rules and many states provide exemptions for a variety of circumstances, which may allow upset emissions to become a substantial, yet mostly unregulated source of emissions. We catalog the quantity and type of emissions generated during upset events at 18 Texas petroleum refineries from 2003 to 2008. We find that upset events occur frequently at these facilities and are collectively large in magnitude, emitting a combined total of 75 million lbs of emissions. In a select number of cases, single upset events exceeded annual emissions reported to the Toxics Release Inventory. Future research should assess the accuracy of upset event reporting and impact of upset events on environmental health.     

Bear attack--A unique fatality in Finland

Fatalities due to animal bites, the vast majority of which are associated with dogs and big cats, are relatively uncommon and rarely described in the literature. Especially rare are fatal bear attacks on humans. We herein present a forensic investigation of a fatal assault, involving numerous bites on a 42-year-old man in Finland by an European brown bear (Ursus arctos arctos).     

Measuring State Environmental Policy

Studies of environmental policy employ various empirical strategies for measuring state environmental effort. The majority of these strategies can be divided into four categories: indices of state programmatic indicators, government expenditures, pollution abatement costs, and regulatory enforcement actions. In this article, we argue that these measures are empirically distinct, capture different attributes of state environmental policy, and are correlated with different intrastate factors. Thus, the choice among environmental policy measures is substantively important for researchers to consider, and we conclude by providing advice to scholars concerning choosing among these measures.     

论船舶油污损害的损失分担

船舶油污损害损失分担是指由导致油污损害的船舶所有人、石油进口商和船旗国等主体,按照一定的归责原则和赔偿序位,对船舶跨界油污损害的受害者所遭受的损失分担赔偿义务的法律机制。从20世纪60年代末开始,国际社会逐步建立了船舶油污损害损失分担的制度模式,确立了民事责任人的限额民事责任和石油进口方的限额赔偿义务,但没有涉及船旗国的国际赔偿责任。从船舶油污损害损失分担的概念入手,对现行分担船舶油污损害损失的主体及其局限性进行分析,论述建立有船旗国参与的船舶油污损害三级赔偿机制的基本框架及其意义。     

船舶油污损害公约在中国的适用问题研究

根据国际法理论,条约在内国法上的效力由一国国内法予以规定。面对目前中国国内法规定对于船舶油污损害公约在中国的适用位阶和适用边界并不明确的问题,一种适当的解释方法应当是:与船舶油污法规相比,在中国,船舶油污损害公约应当优先适用,并且这种优先效力当然及于涉外情形。不过在非涉外情形下,立法意旨和倾向表明国内法应当予以适用。