Reflection on the Inversion of the Burden of Proof in Environmental Infringement——Pollution Analysis by Noise and Electromagnetic Radiation

Abstract

Since the 21st century, industrialization has entered a new process, and at the same time, it has brought more environmental infringement. The traditional allocation of the burden of proof follows the principle of "who advocates who provides evidence". Due to the difficulty and complexity of proving causality, the burden of proof is reversed in environmental tort. In order to protect the vulnerable infringees in environmental tort cases, relevant laws and regulations emphasize that infringers need to bear no-fault liability. However, in practice, the inversion of the burden of proof makes most tortfeasors rely heavily on the expert opinions of professional organizations, and sometimes even become "vulnerable groups" in the evidential relationship, which leads to a large number of controversial penalties with different standards. In environmental infringement involving pollution such as sound waves and electromagnetic radiation, there are still a lot of unknowns in related research fields, which further intensifies the internal contradiction of the design of inversion of the burden of proof. Aiming at the practical problems of the inversion of the burden of proof in practice, this paper studies practical problems such as cognitive limitations, fuzzy responsibility distribution, lack of diversity, etc. Studying the environmental tort of noise and electromagnetic radiation and analyzing the application of inversion of the burden of proof will help to further improve the rules of proof of environmental tort and provide a reference for the design of subdivided laws and regulations.