Strict liability for marine pollution damage caused by ships: A legal analysis

• Gueddouri Fouad

  University of El Oued

• Bouki Toufik

  University of El Oued

Strict liability is considered a fundamental legal mechanism for addressing the economic and environmental damages resulting from marine pollution caused by ships. It obliges shipowners to compensate for damage without the need to prove fault, reflecting the evolution of civil law from the traditional fault-based tort system to a regime centered on damage and causal link, in order to keep pace with industrial risks in maritime navigation. The main issue lies in the extent to which this form of liability is suited to the massive and hard-to-prove nature of marine damages, particularly with the spread of oil spill incidents and hazardous transport, where it is difficult to place the burden of proof on victims amid technical and geographical complexities. This raises questions about its theoretical foundations (the risk-bearing theory and the guarantee theory) and the scope of its exceptions, such as force majeure.

• PDF

Copyright (c) 2025 Tax Policy Journal

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.