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From: dave@lsuc.UUCP
Newsgroups: can.politics
Subject: Canada suing the US for pollution?
Message-ID: <1594@lsuc.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 22-Feb-87 14:22:06 EST
Article-I.D.: lsuc.1594
Posted: Sun Feb 22 14:22:06 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 22-Feb-87 16:35:22 EST
References: <8490@watrose.UUCP> <234@pembina.alberta.UUCP>
Sender: root@lsuc.UUCP
Reply-To: dave@lsuc.UUCP (David Sherman)
Distribution: can
Organization: Law Society of Upper Canada, Toronto
Lines: 41
Summary: Have fun

In article <234@pembina.alberta.UUCP> bjorn@alberta.UUCP writes:
>Has anyone looked into the possibility of suing the US in
>the US for damages resulting from pollutant originating in
>the US?  How about damages and controls?  I know it's possible
>for foreign entities to sue US entities (including the
>government) in US courts.  The law?  US law of course.
>
>So does someone (Dave Sherman can you help?) know enough about
>US pollution and/or liability legislation to answer these questions?

Liability for tort tends to be a matter of common law in the
U.S., as it is in Canada, though it's modified and refined by leigislation.

You don't define "suing the US". I don't think any cause of action
would lie against the US government, since the government isn't causing
the pollution. In general, if a government undertakes to provide a
certain measure of regulation or control, and then fails due to negligence,
there may be a cause of action, but there's no liability on the part
of government at any level for failing to legislate in a field.

(If there are existing US pollution laws which are not being enforced,
however, things would be a bit easier, though not much.)

Suing specific US polluters would also be problematic.
I can see some horrendous problems, some of them possibly
insurmountable. Examples:
	- jurisdiction: what court? the offender is in the US,
	  while the pollution complained of occurs in Canada
	- standing: who is the plaintiff? Individual Canadians?
	  What are their damages? The Canadian government? Perhaps.
	- what is the tort which gives rise to the cause of action?
	- evidentiary problems: demonstrating to the satisfaction of
	  a court the effects of a specific polluter on a specific
	  area of Canada
Don't bother giving answers to these; they're just examples of some
of the problems. This type of complaint is something more appropriate
to a non-legal body such as the World Court, perhaps, where issues of
jurisdiction and standing must be agreed on *before* anyone actually
gets to court.
-- 
{ seismo!mnetor  cbosgd!utgpu  watmath  decvax!utcsri  ihnp4!utzoo } !lsuc!dave