Natural desasters and civil liability. Detection of the challenges presented by this category of harmful facts

Abstract

This paper presents a series of thoughts needed to fit properly natural disasters into the Chilean system of civil liability, as a prior and essential step to the possible configuration of a subcate­gory of the civil liability, called civil liability for natural disasters. To this goal, it describes the aspects that characterize disasters as hypothesis of risks and harmful acts, highlighting the complications that must necessarily be removed if you want a coherent system of civil liability. In particular, it highlights the problems associated with the test of causation and the extent of the compensation, as well as the possible exercise of the action for contingent damages, to prevent the occurrence of disasters, identifying the problems that need to be resolved so that such an action is to prosper.