환경분쟁 해결을 위한 한국 법원의 발전 방향 = Future Directions for Environmental Dispute Resolution in the Korean Court

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

The first civil action seeking damages from automobile gas emissions was brought to the Korean Court on January 2007. Twenty three residents in Seoul who were suffering from asthma or chronic bronchitis claimed damage and injunctions against the Korean Government, Seoul Metropolitan Government and major car manufacturing companies to place restrictions on nitrogen dioxide and fine particle dust emissions. The Chamber for Environmental Trials in Seoul Central District Court turned down the lawsuit on January 2010, saying the causality between gas emissions and the plaintiffs` disease was not sufficiently proved. After nine months of hearing, the Seoul High Court dismissed the plaintiffs` appeal with the same reasoning. The residents appealed to the Supreme Court and the First Air Pollution Case in Korea is still ongoing. The Clean Air Conservation Act (CACA) and the Water Quality Conservation Act (WQCA, which was renamed to the Water Quality and Hydro Ecosystem Conservation Act in 2007) was first enacted in 1990. In contrast with the Clean Air Act (CAA) and Clean Water Act (CWA) in the United States, Korean Environmental Law including CACA and WQCA provides neither a private right of action nor a private right of enforcement. For this reason, private law remedies which were made by the environmental victims have been private environmental claims for injunctions or damages in civil procedure, especially torts. Therefore, the First Air Pollution Case in Korea is a reflection of developing series of environmental actions in private law, and has a great meaning for the future directions of environmental trials. The first-ever environmental claim for damage was filed on February 1998 by the residents in Maehyang-ri who were seeking compensation for damage from AO the noise of army target practice, and the first-ever court decision ordering solatium for the suffering of the residents was made in April 2001. Starting with this claims for noise damages, the Korean Court has made a lot of progress ordering compensation for damages from noise disturbance and sunlight blocking conflict. However in areas where there is no immediate accident or event giving rise to the action, but rather a gradual release involving multiple hazardous substances with differing degrees of potential toxicity and exposure routes, or multiple potential sources or defendants, the Korean Court has not made satisfactory resolution of the claim. Health damages caused from air pollution or water pollution can create significant damage to the victim`s quality of life. Furthermore, as the air and water pollution around the world is becoming more serious, the latter areas are becoming the main environmental dispute in the Korean Court. Therefore there is a strong need to not only try to specialize environmental trials and make environmentally specialized courts or chambers more effective in resolving environmental dispute, but also to develop environmental legal theories and cooperative with environmental scientists and doctors to heighten environmental victim protection.

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