State Liability in Administrative Lawsuits due to Flood Damage and Climate Change

Abstract

The climate change has unequivocally exacerbated more magnitude and frequency of flood due to dramatic warming impact all around the world. Scientists globally unveiled the climate change, in some cases, are not only major reason to more elevate flood water depths on both state and private lands, but also intensify frequency of flooding, relevant sedimentation and erosion. States may aggravate flood damage through neglect anticipating climate change and no taking its adverse climate change impacts into account for their programs or policies. The UNEP Global Climate Litigation Report (2020) disclosed that rapid increase in climate litigation has occurred around the world, e.g., in 2017, 884 cases sued in 24 countries and July 2020, total cases has approximately twice-times with about 1,550 climate change cases sued in 38 countries. The increasing dramatic number of climate lawsuits is pressuring much-needed change. In Thailand, affected-flood people, up-to-date, have sued administrative cases of state liability through administrative disputes under Section 9 Paragraph one of the Act on Establishment of Administrative Courts and Administrative Court Procedure, B.E. 2542 (1999). The factual and legal problems of state liability in Thailand still must have been needed to be developed. As these above mentioned, the article thus disclosed not only the causation and problem of flood including the climate change impact in Thailand, but also international and Thai conceptual ideas of state liability due to resulting of flood exacerbating by climate change.  Therefore, state liability disputes of Chao Phraya flood damage cases were analyzed in order to propose the guideline suggestion for solving the administrative disputes in efficient and fair manner to both plaintiff and defendant, no burden to state budget and minimizing the induction of social conflicts in the future.