Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Foreword by David D. Caron
- TRANSBOUNDARY HARM IN INTERNATIONAL LAW
- Introduction
- PART ONE THE TRAIL SMELTER ARBITRATION – HISTORY, LEGACY, AND REVIVAL
- PART TWO TRAIL SMELTER AND CONTEMPORARY TRANSBOUNDARY HARM – THE ENVIRONMENT
- PART THREE TRAIL SMELTER AND CONTEMPORARY TRANSBOUNDARY HARM – BEYOND THE ENVIRONMENT
- 18 Trail Smelter and Terrorism: International Mechanisms to Combat Transboundary Harm
- 19 The Conundrum of Corporate Social Responsibility: Reflections on the Changing Nature of Firms and States
- 20 A Pyrrhic Victory: Applying the Trail Smelter Principle to State Creation of Refugees
- 21 Transboundary Harm: Internet Torts
- 22 International Drug Pollution? Reflections on Trail Smelter and Latin American Drug Trafficking
- 23 Application of International Human Rights Conventions to Transboundary State Acts
- Annex A Convention Between the United States of America and the Dominion of Canada Relative to the Establishment of a Tribunal to Decide Questions of Indemnity and Future Regime Arising from the Operation of Smelter at Trail, British Columbia
- Annex B Trail Smelter Arbitral Tribunal Decision, April 16, 1938
- Annex C Trail Smelter Arbitral Tribunal March 11, 1941, Decision
- Index
21 - Transboundary Harm: Internet Torts
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Foreword by David D. Caron
- TRANSBOUNDARY HARM IN INTERNATIONAL LAW
- Introduction
- PART ONE THE TRAIL SMELTER ARBITRATION – HISTORY, LEGACY, AND REVIVAL
- PART TWO TRAIL SMELTER AND CONTEMPORARY TRANSBOUNDARY HARM – THE ENVIRONMENT
- PART THREE TRAIL SMELTER AND CONTEMPORARY TRANSBOUNDARY HARM – BEYOND THE ENVIRONMENT
- 18 Trail Smelter and Terrorism: International Mechanisms to Combat Transboundary Harm
- 19 The Conundrum of Corporate Social Responsibility: Reflections on the Changing Nature of Firms and States
- 20 A Pyrrhic Victory: Applying the Trail Smelter Principle to State Creation of Refugees
- 21 Transboundary Harm: Internet Torts
- 22 International Drug Pollution? Reflections on Trail Smelter and Latin American Drug Trafficking
- 23 Application of International Human Rights Conventions to Transboundary State Acts
- Annex A Convention Between the United States of America and the Dominion of Canada Relative to the Establishment of a Tribunal to Decide Questions of Indemnity and Future Regime Arising from the Operation of Smelter at Trail, British Columbia
- Annex B Trail Smelter Arbitral Tribunal Decision, April 16, 1938
- Annex C Trail Smelter Arbitral Tribunal March 11, 1941, Decision
- Index
Summary
INTRODUCTION
No presentation of today's approaches to transboundary harm would be complete without a glance at Internet law. Of particular interest is the question of how to deal with tortious acts committed online where the act is committed in one country and the harm occurs in another. The difference between the solution that has been adopted for transboundary harm in that area of law and the approach to transboundary (environmental) harm chosen in the Trail Smelter arbitration could hardly be more striking. In the Trail Smelter case, private international law failed to provide a solution for the United States farmers whose fields were damaged as a result of fumigations connected with smelting activities in Canada. Rather than pursuing their claims in national courts, the farmers nudged the United States into taking up their case, and the countries involved found the solution for the situation on the international plane in the form of an ad hoc arbitral tribunal. The well-known public international law rule, “that no State has the right to use or permit the use of its territory in such a manner as to cause injury by fumes in or to the territory of another or the properties or persons therein (…),” salvaged the situation and was the key to the parties' obtaining indemnification for the harm they had suffered.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Transboundary Harm in International LawLessons from the Trail Smelter Arbitration, pp. 268 - 280Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2006