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Beyond The Liability Wall: Strengthening Tort Remedies In International Environmental Law, Noah Sachs

Noah Sachs

Despite decades of effort, the international community has stumbled in attempts to craft tort remedies for victims of transboundary environmental damage. More than a dozen civil liability treaties have been negotiated that create causes of action and prescribe liability rules, but few have entered into force, and most remain unadopted orphans in international environmental law. In this Article, I explain the problematic record of tort liability regimes by developing a theoretical model of liability negotiations, grounded in regime theory from political science. Based on the model, I conclude that negotiated liability regimes have foundered because of three main roadblocks: 1) …