Civil Liability for Waste : A Legal Analysis of the Proposed EC Directive

The last years have seen the rise of new strategies in environmental law which aim at supplementing command and control regulation by economic incentives to reduce pollution. Such incentives would include improved civil law remedies. It is against this background that the Commission of the European Communities proposed a Directive on civil liability for damage caused by waste. The proposal is widely believed to be the precursor of EC liability directives covering other sources of environmental impairment. The authors scrutinize the provisions of this latest piece of (proposed) EC legislation in the field of environmental law and develop policy recommendations on the key issues of waste liability law. The main chapters deal with the parties on which strict waste liability should rest, the requirements regarding causation, the legal remedies which should be available in cases of injury to the environment, and the issue of whether or not to require compulsory insurance.