Just as transportation via air, sea or rail carries the potential of both catastrophe and total destruction, so does transportation via petrochemical pipeline.
To say that a mode of transportation carries the potential of a catastrophe implies that a huge number of deaths and injuries and huge material destruction can happen when these accidents occur in high-workload, high-speed transportation systems.
Saying that it carries the potential of total destruction means that it will be very difficult to survive such accidents in such a system.
When an accident occurs, that means that the method for monitoring the safety of the transportation system has failed, and legally speaking, such a failure will involve both civil and criminal liability as well as the issue of administrative responsibility.
Investigations by the judicial authorities are aimed at determining an offender’s actions in order to be able to ascertain criminal liability or protect the just and fair allocation between the perpetrator and the victim of liability for damages under civil law.
Such investigations are also intended to be used as a basis for administrative punishment for any violation of administrative regulations.
When it comes to the issue of transportation accidents, in addition to investigating whether an accident was caused by human error, there are also accidents that are not caused by human error as well as accidents that are caused by technical, operational and management shortcomings.
The targets of investigation also include the administrative agencies charged with safety supervision and management and they also involve conflicts of interest.
This is why there are independent parallel mechanisms for the investigation of safety systems, which is different from a judicial investigation or a traditional administrative investigation.
In 1998, following a series of air crashes, Taiwan decided to emulate advanced countries by setting up the Aviation Safety Council — which is charged with investigating flight incidents — and building a legal framework for flight safety investigations in order to improve the safety of air transportation.
The difference being that, in addition to investigating aviation accidents, the responsibilities of authorities charged with air transportation safety investigations in advanced countries also include sea, rail — including standard railways, high-speed railways and subways — and petrochemical pipeline transportation, all of which carry the potential of causing catastrophe and wreaking destruction.
More than 72 hours have now passed since apparent gas leakages from petrochemical pipelines in Greater Kaohsiung resulted in explosions on Thursday night last week, however, the exact explanations for the explosions, including who is responsible, are still unknown.
How, then, does the nation ensure the prevention of a similar disaster from occurring again?
It is clear that one of the government’s most urgent tasks is to establish a legal framework regulating safety investigations that integrates petrochemical pipelines, sea, air and rail transportation in order to satisfy public expectations that the government protect and maintain social safety and normal economic activities.
Jao Juei-cheng is an associate professor at National Taiwan Ocean University’s Institute of the Law of the Sea and secretary-general of the Taiwan Maritime Law Association.
Translated by Perry Svensson
Two sets of economic data released last week by the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) have drawn mixed reactions from the public: One on the nation’s economic performance in the first quarter of the year and the other on Taiwan’s household wealth distribution in 2021. GDP growth for the first quarter was faster than expected, at 6.51 percent year-on-year, an acceleration from the previous quarter’s 4.93 percent and higher than the agency’s February estimate of 5.92 percent. It was also the highest growth since the second quarter of 2021, when the economy expanded 8.07 percent, DGBAS data showed. The growth
In the intricate ballet of geopolitics, names signify more than mere identification: They embody history, culture and sovereignty. The recent decision by China to refer to Arunachal Pradesh as “Tsang Nan” or South Tibet, and to rename Tibet as “Xizang,” is a strategic move that extends beyond cartography into the realm of diplomatic signaling. This op-ed explores the implications of these actions and India’s potential response. Names are potent symbols in international relations, encapsulating the essence of a nation’s stance on territorial disputes. China’s choice to rename regions within Indian territory is not merely a linguistic exercise, but a symbolic assertion
More than seven months into the armed conflict in Gaza, the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to take “immediate and effective measures” to protect Palestinians in Gaza from the risk of genocide following a case brought by South Africa regarding Israel’s breaches of the 1948 Genocide Convention. The international community, including Amnesty International, called for an immediate ceasefire by all parties to prevent further loss of civilian lives and to ensure access to life-saving aid. Several protests have been organized around the world, including at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) and many other universities in the US.
Every day since Oct. 7 last year, the world has watched an unprecedented wave of violence rain down on Israel and the occupied Palestinian Territories — more than 200 days of constant suffering and death in Gaza with just a seven-day pause. Many of us in the American expatriate community in Taiwan have been watching this tragedy unfold in horror. We know we are implicated with every US-made “dumb” bomb dropped on a civilian target and by the diplomatic cover our government gives to the Israeli government, which has only gotten more extreme with such impunity. Meantime, multicultural coalitions of US