Class action lawsuits claim compensation from enterprises for environmental pollution under the law in France and the United States and lessons for Vietnam

Abstract

In the system of legal provisions on environmental protection in Vietnam, the issue of suing for damages due to environmental pollution of the victims still faces many procedural barriers and becomes impossible to implement in practice. This situation leads to the mitigation of legal deterrence towards violating businesses and do not optimally protect the rights of victims. The number of lawsuit claims remains abundant, but the number of lawsuits that the victims win and can claim civil remedies from polluting businesses has only remained at an insignificant level. In this article, the author has focused on analyzing a number of legal issues on collective lawsuits that claim compensation from businesses for environmental pollution in Vietnam, based on the study of regulations of the legal system of the United States and France on this issue, so that we can gain lessons to propose some recommendations to improve the Vietnamese legal framework.