Wijnants, Catherine --- "Corporate Environmental Liability within the European Union" [2005] ELECD 213; in Tully, Stephen (ed), "Research Handbook on Corporate Legal Responsibility" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2005)

Book Title: Research Handbook on Corporate Legal Responsibility

Editor(s): Tully, Stephen

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781843768203

Section: Chapter 19

Section Title: Corporate Environmental Liability within the European Union

Author(s): Wijnants, Catherine

Number of pages: 15

Extract:

19 Corporate environmental liability within
the European Union
Catherine Wijnants



Introduction
The Sixth Environment Action Programme defines the priorities and objec-
tives of the European Union's environmental policy up to 2010 (European
Community, 2002). It recognises that legislation remains central to meeting
environmental challenges. A few weeks later, the Prestige oil tanker disaster,
which, in November 2002, caused serious pollution along the Spanish and
French Atlantic coast, confirmed that environmental liability is an issue of
utmost importance. The Sixth Environment Action Programme also aims at
promoting collaboration and partnership with enterprises with a view to
improving the environmental performance of enterprises. In Europe, the
debate is currently growing over how corporate accountability to various
stakeholders (as well as shareholders) can be increased. The next section
examines the substantive grounds for environmental corporate liability in
Europe with the directive on environmental liability discussed in some detail.1
Contemporary initiatives regarding criminal liability will be reviewed in the
subsequent section. The penultimate section considers the implications of
these developments for corporate social responsibility within the EU. The final
section concludes.

Substantive grounds for environmental liability at the EU level

The environmental liability directive2

Background and justification for an EC environmental liability regime On
23 January 2002, the European Commission adopted a proposal for a directive
on environmental liability addressing both prevention and restoration of envi-
ronmental damage.3 The Commission then submitted this proposal to the
European Parliament and to the Council of the European Union with a view to
the ...