Civil Liability For Environmental Damage In Iraqi Law: A Comparative Study

Abstract

Our study consists in noting the progressive apprehension in Iraq and French positive civil law of environmental legislation. The purpose of this study is to demonstrate that there is a functional and interactive relationship between civil law and current environmental concerns. These help to modify Iraqi civil law and force a rethinking of a number of its fundamental principles. When interacting with civil law, environmental concerns will primarily affect contract law. Finally, regarding contract law, environmental concerns affect the general theory by increasing the compulsory content of the contract and the content of named contracts. The environment is also becoming a fully-fledged object of new contracts which have as a direct or secondary purpose the protection of the environment. All the changes thus observed foreshadow a specific legal space, private and public, whose object is the environment and its protection. In view of these concerns, it is possible to wonder how the environment and the contract can really meet, consider each other and more broadly influence each other since, in fact, the environment is part of a long-term perspective. It is developing for current generations but also for future generations. As some authors argue, environmental law is intended to govern a general interest, whereas the contract is the tool par excellence for governing particular interests. But are general interest and particular interests diametrically opposed? Why can't the contract serve the environment? Of course, environmental law has its own instruments, such as impact studies or environmental responsibility, but doesn't this law deserve efficiency from all points of view? Efficiency that would start at the level of each individual? This is what the study conducted here will help us discover by answering the following question:  how can a tool traditionally used to govern particular interests, such as the contract, be beneficial to a more general interest which is the protection of the environment? Protection of the environment can generally be considered as the desire to prohibit, prevent and reduce damage to the environment or to limit its consequences.