on or other relief in respect of damage caused by pollution of the marine environment by natural or juridical persons under their jurisdiction."68
As a matter of fact, international conventions provide for procedures ensuring at least partial compensation for the damages that seem to be the most considerable: those caused by nuclear accidents,69 those resulting from the pollution of the sea by hydrocarbons,70 and damages to the Antarctic environment by mineral resource activities.71
But the same article of the Law of the Sea Convention also opens a door for a larger conception of international liability. According to the first paragraph, "states are responsible for the fulfillment of their international obligations concerning the protection and preservation of the marine environment. They shall be liable in accordance with international law "72
This clause makes no distinction between the obligations resulting from a damage caused to another state and the consequences of the breach of a treaty obligation. The preamble of the 1989 Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Waste and Their Disposal reproduces this provision as a general principle, adding that, "in the case of a material breach of the provisions of the convention or any protocol thereto, the relevant international law of treaties shall apply."73
Most writers in international law are hypnotized by damage as the principal if not the exclusive condition for liability. However, as has been demonstrated, damage is extremely hard to establish in certain fields, while potential violations of the thousands of existing treaty provisions, which tend to protect the environment, become more and more a reality. One of the consequences of global change is the fantastic development of international regulations in different fields, and the main task of the international rule concerning liability seems to ensure their respect. In this regard it is irrelevant whether damage has occurred: a state that authorizes or tolerates the dumping of wastes prohibited by the 1972 London Convention74 is liable whether the existence of damage has been proven or not. It is also irrelevant whether there is another state that pretends to be the victim.
Another consequence of this approach is that international "commons," such as the high seas or outer space, can be better protected. In the present state of international law, no state could file a claim for damage that was suffered not by itself but only by the high seas, or for the pollution of outer space. The recognition of international liability for the violation of a treaty provision allows such an action.
Thus, international liability stresses the public-law character of international law, instead of the still dominating civil-law concepts. Would it be possible to imagine that in the field of the protection of human rights a state would be liable only if there is material damage caused to a person? A parallel evolution of our conceptions in other fields must necessarily follow. This directly leads to the implications of global change for the structures of the international legal order.
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