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Author	Dr Li Yan
Organisation/Institution	East China University of Political Science and Law
Country	CHINA
Panel	Private International Law
Title	The Law Applicable to Cross-Border Environmental Torts in East Asia: From the Perspective of Harmonization and Unification
Abstract	The United Nations Agenda 2030 with its 17 Sustainable Development Goals presents the importance of the harmonious coexistence of the environment and humanity. The issue of environmental protection, which plays a vital role in realizing the goals, always turns into an international problem, especially among geographically close countries. One of the most typical examples is the growing number of international environmental issues, such as air and ocean pollution, between three East Asian countries: China, South Korea, and Japan. Private International Law plays an inevitable role to this extent, especially in a case where a private litigant files a suit in the court of the specific country to secure the legitimate civil interests infringed upon by the environmental torts. The article focuses on the issues of governing law problems raised by this situation. Comparing the legislation between China, South Korea, and Japan, it is not hard to find out that the approaches of the three countries in this field have many similarities as well as a few differences. For instance, both Chinese and South Korean legislations adopted the principles of lex loci delicti and lex domicilii communis, while the latter do not recognize party autonomy in this. This situation presents us with the necessity and possibility for the harmonization and unification of East Asian legislation in this field to prevent the situation of the forum shopping and other inappropriate results such as unfairness between parties. In this context, the following two questions can be raised. First, how to set out the specific content of the regulation? Second, what is the most appropriate way to achieve harmonization in this regard? This paper aims to contribute to environmental protection and sustainable development in East Asia by presenting answers to the above two issues from the perspective of Private International Law.
Biography	LI Yan is a lecturer at the International Law School of the East China University of Political Science and Law. She obtained an LLB at China University of Political Science and Law and an LLM as well as a PhD at Seoul National University. She became a qualified legal professional in the People’s Republic of China in 2017. Before joining the ECUPL, she was a postdoctoral researcher at the Law Research Institute of Seoul National University and a visiting researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law. She is also the Scholarship Holder of the Hague Academy of International Law. Her main research areas include private international law (in a broad sense), international business law, and comparative private law. Her writing languages are Chinese, English, and Korean, She has already published over 10 articles articles and book chapters in her research fields. As regards Asian Private International Law, she is the independent author of several related articles, one of the authors of the “Commentary on the Korean PIL Act 2022", and one of the translators of the Chinese version of the Korean PIL Act. In addition, she has been invited to give academic speeches in multiple countries such as South Korea, Australia, and Germany.