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This article focuses on the liability issues arising from the Fukushima nuclear disaster. The radioactivity released from the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant inflicted catastrophic harm to people, industries, and the environment. Under Japanese law, a nuclear operator bears strict, channeling, and unlimited liability for nuclear damage unless the damage is caused by a grave natural disaster of an exceptional character. This article concludes the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami that triggered this nuclear accident do not fall within this exemption because neither of them were unforeseeable nor far beyond the design basis for the reactors at the plant. Therefore, Tokyo Electric Power Company ("TEPCO") must compensate any damages if the nuclear accident is the legally sufficient cause of them. Additionally, this article argues two entities should be legally responsible for the Fukushima nuclear disaster. The Government of Japan can be liable for the nuclear damage if it failed to exercise its regulatory power over the Tokyo Electric Power Company or if its errant acts expanded the damage. General Electric, the designer of the reactors at the plant, might also be liable for the nuclear damage under U.S. law, assuming the reactors had any weaknesses in their design.

This paper presents an analysis of the changing impact of products liability risk on various individuals, firms, and institutions in today's society. After defining products liability and products liability risk, the pendulum-like evolu tion of products liability law is documented. Then an analysis of some of the most important factors responsible for the recent increases in the frequency and severity of products liability litigation is presented. Several of these elements have appar ently combined to produce a synergistic increase in products- related lawsuits. These elements include recent development in the law of products liability, together with a newly emerging products claim consciousness, public concerns about product safety, and the plethora of old and new products in use today. Finally, the paper concludes with an analysis of the potential impact of enacting one or more of the many proposed solutions to the problem of products liability risk.

The liability crisis of the mid-1980s has led to an extensive reexamination of the liability system. A number of explanations have been offered for the substantial increase in insurance premiums and, in some cases, a decline in the availability of insurance. These include stimulation of the underwriting cycle by a decline in interest rates, collusion among insurance firms, rising tort costs, and uncertainty with respect to the liability burden.' Most observers, however, also point to changes in tort law itself. For example, plaintiffs may now have a more favorable environment for obtaining an award and, if they are successful, they may receive a larger award than in earlier eras. In addition, changes in the legal environment may have fostered considerable uncertainty that itself increases the costs insurance companies face. The liability crisis has led to reassessments of the state of tort law and explorations of ways in which it can be improved. A variety of legal reform groups, a Department of Justice task force, and a recent spate of conferences have all addressed aspects of the liability crisis and ways in which the law can be restructured. A wide variety of states have also begun legislative initiatives to limit tort recoveries. Among the more popular measures are caps and restrictions on punitive damages, caps on pain and suffering damages, modifications in comparative negligence standards, limits on the application of joint and several liability, changes in collateral source rules, and limits on government liability. Most of these changes came in the late 1980s, and it is too early to assess their implications. It is, however, possible to explore the role that earlier statutory reforms have had. Not all states have products-liability statutes, and those statutes that have been enacted differ considerably. This article focuses on how the performance of products-liability insurance varies with the statutory regime by using the complete insurance files for the products-liability-bodily injury lines of the ...

Abstract:Strict liability in tort law is thought by some to have a moral counterpart. In this essay I attempt to determine whether there is, in fact, strict liability in the moral domain. I argue that there is, and I critically evaluate several accounts of its normative foundations before suggesting one of my own.

The paper considers a variety of sources of potential climate liability in Canada. Sources considered include the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, jurisdictional issues, aboriginal rights, the public trust, judicial review of regulatory decisions, tort principles of such as nuisance, negligence, and strict liability, securities litigation, legislative issues under federal and provincial legislation, such as species at risk Acts, environmental assessment processes, and the role of public international law in climate litigation in Canada. Various opportunities to petition national and international institutions on climate issues are also identified.co-authors: Dennis Mahony and Alex Smith