Environmental Liability

An examination of the principal liability rules which operate in the context of environmental protection and environmental damage. The notion of "environmental liability" is broadly construed: encompassing matters of civil liability, criminal liability, and liability to administrative direction (or to pay the costs of administrative action taken in default). The aim is to allow readers to gain a view of the overall incidence of environmental liabilities - and, perhaps, thereby to assist in some assessment of the role most appropriately to be played by each liability component. The book is divided into three main parts, beginning with discussion of the incidence and operation of civil liability rules. The chapters on criminal liability focus on offences in the contexts of water pollution and waste. They deal also with issues of corporate and personal criminal liability, the prosecution policies of the enforcement agencies, and sentencing guidelines.