Compensation for Marine Ecological Damage: From ‘Tasman Sea’ to ‘Sanchi’
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The paper is overall coherent and addresses a topical issue with relevant insights about the legal framework for compensation and remediation of marine ecological damage in China. To this extent, the paper is novel and contributes to the existing scholarship on the topic.
I would however recommend the following edits to the paper:
- To provide further background theoretical analysis on the concept of pure ecological damage as related to the marine environment as developed in international law and - if relevant - in China.
- To frame the concept of ecological damage within the context of the polluter-pays principles as applied in China, also in relation to the selection of remedies for marine environmental/ecological damage (restoration in kind vs. compensation).
- To include a reference to the key Erika oil spill in France also in relation to the development of pure ecological damage in the French legal system (in addition to the correct reference to the Patmos and Haven case in Sec. 5.1.
- To critically investigate the potential implications of the newly enacted Chinese Civil Code (referred to in Sec. 3.2.
- To integrate the listed references with additional key texts dealing with environmental liability in international law (including, among others, P. Sands, J. Peel, A.F.R. MacKenzie, Principles of International Environmental Law, Cambridge University Press).
Author Response
Response 1: As the response to the comment, the ecosystem services and functions have been included to further illustrate the concept of pure ecological damage. The revised part is from Line 442 to Line 455:
5.2. Constructing an effective remedy-mechanism for marine ecological damage
The main purpose to implementmarine ecological compensation is to restore the ecosystem service functions by the measures of ecological restoration and conservation. Scholars have discussed the global ecosystem services and functions. Robert Costanza grouped ecosystem services into 17 major categories, including nutrient cycling, food production, genetic resources, raw materials, recreation, and cultural. Despite the fact that economy, specifically monetary compensation, has been given a key role in ecosystem protection, the redress of pure economic means cannot resolve all issues of ecological loss caused by marine pollution, such as biodiversity loss, extinction of rare or endangered species, decrease of seawater self-purification capacity and marine habitats deterioration. Hence, some environmental specialists have regarded monetary valuation as a retrogressive step in ecosystem conservation, and commented such retrogression as ‘undoing important sustainability principles and practices that should have been embedded in environmental policy and management action’.
Response 2: As the response to the comment, several remedies including the ecological restoration have been added. The revised part is from Line 456 to Line 469:
Hence, it is recommended that restoration in kind should be applied as a pivotal remedy for (marine) eco-environmental damage. The degradation of ecosystem services in polluted sea area can be restored by means of constructing artificial reefs and wetland, mangrove planting, and establishing marine ecosystem reserves etc. Being an ecosystem approach, ecological restoration can bridge a gap between the loss of ecological value and the reasonably adequate compensation for ecological damage so that the sustainable utilization of marine resources will be guaranteed. Beside of ecosystem restoration, other remedies played a subsidiary role at the national scale are also recommended, in that in financial and administrative terms, the government may increase financial support for ecological protection by environment and resource taxation; moreover, China can strengthen the policy support in respect of marine ecology through tax credit,tax preference and green-credit policies. These tools incorporated into national planning processes will facilitate the government to develop an omnibus redressing-mechanism for the loss of (marine) ecosystem value and the degradation of ecosystem services.
Response 3: The case reference to the Erika oil spill has been included, and please refer to Note[54]. The revised part is from Line 431 to Line 434: in the Erika oil spill case from France in 2008, the channeling of liability was applied for oil pollution damage, and it broke through the limit of liability subjects (normally ship owners and managers) stipulated by the 69/92 CLC.
Response 4: As the response to the comment, the implications of the Civil Code in regard to marine eco-environment protection have been included. The revised part is from Line147 to Line 163:
Furthermore, it is noteworthy that the Civil Code of PRC has come into force since the beginning of the year of 2021. The implementation of the Civil Code is not only the landmark event of Chinese legislation, but also has meaningful implications in regards (marine) eco-environment protection. Firstly, Article 9 of the Civil Code sets up the green principle, by which resource saving and environment protection has become legal obligations for each civil subject. It shows that newly enacted Chinese Civil Code accentuates the dependency of human society on its natural environment, and pays more attention on the environment value. Secondly, by the polluter-pays principle, traditional tort liabilities for environment pollution aims to indemnify personal injuries or property damage; and the environment is just regarded as a legal object, which people treat it as a media to trigger tort claims caused by environment pollution or environment damage. As for the damage to the environment per se, it is basically beyond the compensation scope stipulated by civil laws. But, Chapter 7 of Book Seven Tort Liability of the Civil Code specifically stipulates the liabilities for environmental pollution and ecological damage. It illustrates that the Civil Code values the equity and justice to ecology and provides the institutional guarantee for the ecological protection.
Response 5: The recommended key texts are not available.
Reviewer 2 Report
This paper deals with compensation for marine ecological damage which is interesting and meaningful. The paper is well researched and written. I believe this paper will in some way fill the gap between the real practice and current literature. I do, however, have some comments to further improve the overall quality of the paper and listed as the following:
- There is no doubt that this paper is largely based the discussion concerning Chinese laws and practice. This fact needs to in some way reflecting on the main topic of this paper.
- Lines 100-105, also need to clarify whether or not China is a party to UNCLOS?
- Lines 170-172, the authors noted “Especially Article 142 concerning the status of international treaties, it provided a legal basis on the priority application of international treaties and the applicability of international conventions. ” It is also important to clarify that “the treaties in which China has signed and ratified.”
- Lines 184-187, “92CLC”; “1992 CLC” consistency of overall presentation is very important for a good research. The authors are suggested to check through the whole paper thoroughly before final submission.
- Lines 195-196, the authors noted “the final result on compensation nearly broke the judicial records” So what is the actual record and in which case?
- Lines 245-247, if this is your suggestion then the wording “shall” needs to be revised as “should”.
- Line 358, the wording “shall” need to revised as “will”.
- Line 368, the wording “shall” need to revised as “should”.
- Line 453, the authors noted “Chapter 5th”, it should be “Chapter 5”.
Author Response
Response 1: The main purpose of the paper is to discuss the current legal status of the marine ecological damage compensation in China, then to find out issues and propose some reasonable opinions against the mentioned issues. In order to achieve this goal, the first half of the paper introduces the Chinese legislation and critical cases in China's judicial practice; in the rest part, the paper follows the issue-driven strategy formation, and finishes the reasoning description through identifying issues and providing suggestions. Therefore, in the respect of the logical framework, the paper has achieved the purpose. Certainly, there are several ways to improve the paper, like providing further theoretical analysis on the topic and studying more cases etc. Hence, given the length of the paper, the minor revision has been made, and hope that the paper can be approved.
Response 2: Revised already. Please refer to the reference [10].
Response 3: Revised already. The revised details are Lines 189-201.
Response 4: Checked and revised already.
Response 5: The Case refers to the Tasman Sea Case, and it broke the judicial records regarding to marine ecological damage claims in China. The revised details are Lines 216-217.
Response 6: Since the mentioned part is not a suggestion but a hypothetical condition, the wording "shall" is changed to be "may". For the revised detail, please refer to Line 271.
Response 7: Checked and revised as the reviewer's suggestion already.
Response 8: Checked and revised as the reviewer's suggestion already.
Response 9: Checked and revised as the reviewer's suggestion already.
Reviewer 3 Report
The manuscript deals with an environmental topic based on a specific ship, The “Sanchi” ship accident, but the topic and the conducted research are out of scopes of the Sustainability journal. Authors denoted that:
“The “Sanchi” ship accident raised the alarm on shipping safety for the shipping industry. But opportunity sometimes emerges along with a risky occurrence: ……. The “Sanchi” ship accident could be a moment for China to make essential progress in Chinese legislation on the compensation mechanism for marine eco-environment damage……………It must be emphasized that the building up of a comprehensive and effective compensation mechanism for marine ecological/environmental damage is a necessity during the current construction of marine ecological civilization in China”.
However, these statements are not directly related to the topics of Sustainability, having more relevance with legislative- or marine- interested journals. In my opinion the manuscript is out of scope and it cannot be accepted for publication at the Sustainability journal as is, due to the irrelevant research orientation and the lack of findings of generalized applicability to be drawn. Besides to this conceptual irrelevance and narrow applicability, other constraints/issues to be addressed are the following:
1) The theoretical coverage of the Introduction section has to be internationally-oriented and expanded with more and relevant published papers. Specifically, the theoretical coverage has to be: a) chronologically-specified (containing a historical flash-back to the last decades of published papers in the topic examined) and b) geographically-determined (covering the topic of “Marine Ecological Damage” from international, continental-Asian, and national-Chinese sides of analysis). The aforementioned information, a and b, can be organized into distinct subsections within the main separate “Literature Review” section.
2) The headings’ outline has to be structured in the following main sections (some headings are missing or irrelevant): Introduction, Literature Review, Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusions and Future Research. Then, the existing headings and subheadings can be attached into the aforementioned outline.
3) The main analysis of the manuscript is devoted to an extensive legislative deployment, whereas the dimensions of environment, economic considerations, social impacts, they have to be intensively approached in alignment with: a) sustainability challenges and prospects, b) quantitative data in Tables or Figures that are almost absent. The Discussion section should ideally “accommodate” this missing information, a and b.
The selected topic of investigation and possible publication at the Sustainability journal should cover the aforementioned (indicative) issues for its publication.
Author Response
Please see the response letter for details.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.doc
Reviewer 4 Report
- The subject addressed is within the scope of the journal.
- More suitable title should be selected for the article.
- Abstract section should refer to the study findings, methodologies, discussion as well as conclusion. It is suggested to present the abstract in one 200-250 words paragraph.
- The introduction section is detailed, but needs a significant amount of reorganization. It could be strengthened by adding more recent references.
- Please add as sentence or two to clearly recap how your study differs from what has already been done in literature to ascertain the contributions more strongly
- However, the manuscript, in its present form, contains several weaknesses. Appropriate revisions to the following points should be undertaken in order to justify recommendation for publication.
- For readers to quickly catch your contribution, it would be better to highlight major difficulties and challenges, and your original achievements to overcome them, in a clearer way in abstract and introduction.
-It is suggested to add articles entitled “Nazarnia et al. A Systematic Review of Civil and Environmental Infrastructures for Coastal Adaptation to Sea Level Rise”, “Chzhu et al. Studying Properties of Prospective Biologically Active Extracts from Marine Hydrobionts” and “Ćosić-Flajsig et al. An Innovative Holistic Approach to an E-flow Assessment Model” to the literature review.
- Some assumptions are stated in various sections. Justifications should be provided on these assumptions. Evaluation on how they will affect the results should be made.
- Some key parameters are not mentioned. The rationale on the choice of the particular set of parameters should be explained with more details. Have the authors experimented with other sets of values? What are the sensitivities of these parameters on the results?
- This raises some concerns regarding the potential overlap with authors previous works. The authors should explicitly state the novel contribution of this work, the similarities and the differences of this work with their previous publications.
Author Response
Please see the response letter for details
Author Response File: Author Response.doc
Round 2
Reviewer 3 Report
The revised manuscript has been satisfactorily improved comparing to the former versions. Authors developed a coherent analysis while the review comments have been addressed in a responsible and honest manner. In this respect the revised manuscript sustains insightful remarks in the wider field of marine ecosystem services, focusing on the following domains:
-Challenges in legal practice as well as remediation of marine ecological damage in China.
-Prospects of marine ecological damage compensation under the final settlement in the “Sanchi” case studied.
-Future research orientations and prospects of China’s marine strategy.
In this respect the revised manuscript sustains novel features and it can be accepted for publication at the Sustainability journal as is.
Comments for author File: Comments.docx
Reviewer 4 Report
Excellent! Since the authors have made significant revisions according to the comments raised by all reviewers, I am supportive of this study for publication in MDPI.
