Alternative Principles to Traditional Private Law Rules in Environmental protection

Abstract

Civil responsibility is one of the most important tools in private law that can be used to protect the environment, cut down on pollution, and help people hurt by environmental damage by making those responsible pay for their actions. To be fair, though, the specific nature of ecological damage makes it harder to get civil liability under normal circumstances. We cannot attribute environmental damage to a specific source or pollutant due to its widespread nature. Long-term effects often take time to manifest. Furthermore, it is not a personal harm directly affecting the affected party but rather affects elements of the natural environment and impacts the personal interests of individuals. In addition, insurance companies shirk or refrain from insuring environmental damage due to its seriousness, on the one hand, as it requires giant sums that may exceed the financial capacity of these companies. Unfortunately, the uncertainty surrounding the attribution of pollution to specific individuals makes environmental damage an uninsurable risk, as they are held responsible for pollution that was not their fault. All of this created the need to search for alternative principles to these traditional rules that would more effectively protect the environment and redress those harmed by environmental pollution. Among these principles are preventive compensation and reserve compensation through ecological protection funds. The study focuses on explaining the problem of applying traditional rules in private law related to environmental protection and the principles that can be adopted as an alternative to these rules, with an explanation of the extent of their organization in Iraqi law concerning the position of French law.