Issue : Environmental Conflict and Management
Title : The Many Faces of Strict Liability in Indonesia’s Wildfire Litigation
Author : Andri G. Wibisana
Abstract : Since 2013, the Indonesian Ministry for the Environment and Forestry has sued several timber and oil palm plantations for fires that have occurred within concession areas. These government lawsuits are important, not just for reducing the number of fires in Indonesia, but also for galvanizing a significant development of the nation’s law of civil liability for environmental damage. In these cases, the gov ernment has attempted to ground its suits in two types of liability, namely the liabil ity for an unlawful act and strict liability. The article observes some inaccurate interpretations of strict liability in wildfire litigation, where the liability rule is con sidered as part of the liability rule for an unlawful act, and as a liability rule resulting from the application of the precautionary principle in a faultbased liability rule. The application of strict liability starts with the identification of whether a defend ant’s activity can be considered an abnormally dangerous activity. The article finds that activities related to the clearing and drainage of peatlands are abnormally dan gerous because they significantly increase the risk of fires and constitute an un natural use of land. It concludes that the application of strict liability to wildfires is defendable in so far it can be proven that the defendant has previously conducted the clearing and drainage of peatlands.
Year : 2019
Journal : Review of European, Comparative, and International Environmental Law (“RECIEL”) Vol. 28 No. 2 (2019)
Language : English
Link : https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/reel.12284