Faure, Michael; Betlem, Gerrit --- "Applying National Liability Law to Transboundary Pollution: Some Lessons from Europe and the United States" [2008] ELECD 347; in Faure, Michael; Ying, Song (eds), "China and International Environmental Liability" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2008)

Book Title: China and International Environmental Liability

Editor(s): Faure, Michael; Ying, Song

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781847207524

Section: Chapter 6

Section Title: Applying National Liability Law to Transboundary Pollution: Some Lessons from Europe and the United States

Author(s): Faure, Michael; Betlem, Gerrit

Number of pages: 63

Extract:

6. Applying national liability law to
transboundary pollution: some
lessons from Europe and the United
States
Michael Faure and Gerrit Betlem

1 INTRODUCTION

Examples of transboundary pollution cases can unfortunately be found on
almost all continents and have probably since industrialization only
increased. Moreover, economists would argue that externalization of harm
is a natural phenomenon, not only for individuals and enterprises, but also
for political entities like States. Indeed, if politicians were able to make their
own voters enjoy the benefits of economic activities while they could
succeed in passing on the costs to others, they would in principle not refrain
from doing so. Moreover, politicians will generally not be rewarded for
fights against transboundary pollution since the foreign citizen who would
benefit from such action cannot support them with votes. In other words,
the fact that national politicians would support legislation allowing firms
to externalize harm to their neighbours should, from this economic per-
spective, not come as a surprise. To some extent, it is easy to find examples
of this externalizing behaviour, for example if one simply looks at the siting
of noxious and dangerous facilities: in many countries, dangerous activities
like e.g. nuclear power plants will not be located next to the capital of a par-
ticular country, but preferably close to the borders where risks are primar-
ily felt by their neighbours.
Just as within the national context (also in regard to transboundary
environmental harm), externalities are considered a market failure to
which the law ...