This article explores the development and enforcement of the Republic of Korea’s Soil Environmental Conservation Act (SECA). It argues that, although Korea has adopted the statutory model of the United States (US) Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) and US case law, it has formulated SECA to devise a Korean model of an effective and reasonable liability scheme based on the Korean regulatory context. The original SECA, especially its retroactive liability provision, was declared unconstitutional by the Constitutional Court of Korea, because it violated ‘the principle of legitimate expectations protection’. Since then, SECA has been amended to include more diverse categories of polluter and to provide more adequate defences. The development process of this Korean model can be instructive for less developed countries that urgently need to address soil pollution but are not yet equipped with the necessary environmental statutes and regulatory infrastructure and, thus, are vulnerable to environmental risks.
