Similar to the United States (US) Natural Resource Damage (NRD) program, defined under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA or "Superfund") and the Oil Pollution Act (OPA), the European Union's (EU) Environmental Liability Directive (ELD)imposes liability for, and requires remediation of, significant damage to natural habitats and species protected at Community and national levels, surface and ground waters covered by the Water Framework Directive, and land.The ELD was first published in 2004 and has since been transposed into the national laws of all EU Member States. However there is little guidance available to authorities and industry in interpreting and applying the ELD and meeting its prevention and restoration objectives. This volume is the first to describe the EU's ELD and to examine the emerging issues and practices in its application. While there are differences between the US and EU regimes, some of the underlying concepts, approaches and definitions embedded in NRD are also mirrored in the text of the ELD. The book includes a comparison of similarities and differences as well as synergies in practice; hence, this book will be of interest to both US and European readers. The ELD imposes liability for significant damage to natural habitats and species protected at Community and national levels, surface and ground waters covered by the Water Framework Directive, and land. Prior to the ELD's adoption many Member States had programs in place for the restoration of soil and groundwater contamination, but none had a regime for addressing harm to unowned natural resources. This volume presents a comprehensive legal commentary on the legal issues arising under the ELD, as well as an overview of administrative, technical, and legal issues and practices in applying the ELD regimes to cases of actual or threatened environmental damage. In doing so, it discusses both substantive issues and important procedural and process-related issues. Several case studies are presented to illustrate the issues and practical solutions. In addition, emerging best practices relating to practical ELD application are identified and presented. Identifying and discussing a wide range of emerging administrative, technical, and economic practice issues arising under member state legislation transposing and implementing the ELD, this book will be a valuable resource for all those whose work is affected by the ELD.

Liability and Environment analyzes the role of law, in particular civil liability, in controlling environmental pollution and risk. In modern environmental policy, liability has become a popular instrument. In this book, Prof. Bergkamp takes a fresh look at civil liability for environmental harm in an inter- and transnational context. Over the last decade, industry's liability exposure for environmental harm has expanded significantly. At the international, EC, and national level proposals for onerous strict environmental liability regimes are pending. The `polluter pays principle', which is an articulation of the `cost internalization' theory in the environmental area, is believed to justify such liability regimes. Applying an instrumental approach to legal instruments, Prof. Bergkamp aims to redefine the role of liability in the heavily regulated environmental area. He shows that liability for environmental harm is not justified by the polluter pays principle, is an uncertain and unreliable instrument for achieving prevention, results in an inefficient insurance scheme, and plays a dubious role in adjusting activity levels. Based on an analysis of the basic characteristics of alternative legal instruments, Prof. Bergkamp concludes that civil liability should play a more modest, limited role in an environmental law system dominated by public law. Where deterrence is not the objective, first party insurance, compensation funds, or other public law regimes should be preferred over liability rules. In addition to civil liability of private parties, Liability and Environment discusses State liability under international, EC, and national law. Under international law, breach of a primary obligation triggers a State's liability. Prof. Bergkamp argues that this rule should be applied also to liability of private parties. In the environmental area, a business' primary obligations are spelled out in detailed permit conditions, regulations, and statutes. According to Prof. Bergkamp, only if a primary obligation is breached, a private person should be liable for environmental harm. The system that Bergkamp advocates is an objective fault liability regime, in which public environmental law defines the standard of care for both government and industry. "In rebuilding our civil liability system, we should keep in mind that what is good for industry should be good for everyone (or it is not good for anyone), we should keep in mind that what is good for private parties should be good for the state (or it is not good for either). In rebuilding our civil liability system, the international law of State responsibility, which is unpolluted by risk spreading and activity level considerations, will guide us a long way." This book is aimed at advanced law students, academic scholars, and practitioners. In addition, it will be of interest to policy and legislative analysts, legislators, and government officials. Professor Bergkamp's book cannot be described as "solving" the problems of legal and regulatory control of environmental harm, whether within a nation or internationally. As suggested before, however, the very idea of a "solution" is illusory. All legal and regulatory regimes around the world are today and will remain for the future in a state of perpetually continuing development. The virtue of this fine book is that it moves the process of that development forward by a very substantial measure. from the Foreword by George L. Priest.

Offering a detailed legal account of the various legal arrangements at EU level this book is an ideal reference tool for practitioners and legal scholars. As well as examining the principle sources of EU environmental law enforcement, it also contributes to the legal and political debates that surround the subject. Spanning three parts, the author examines and assesses the practical impact of the legal arrangements at EU level that are used for the purpose of upholding EU environmental norms. Providing a comprehensive account of the current state of EU environmental law enforcement and developments affecting it, Enforcing European Union Environmental Law focuses on the principal sources of EU environmental law enforcement, examining: the role of the European Commission the possibilities for private law enforcement the responsibilities of Member State national authorities. An essential read for those studying, researching and working in the areas of environmental and European Union law.

The Nagoya-Kuala Lumpur Supplementary Protocol on Liability and Redress to the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety, adopted on 15 October 2010 in Nagoya, Japan, provides an international liability regime for biodiversity damage caused by living modified organisms (LMOs). Its adoption marks a significant development in the legal design for international environmental liability regimes, as it incorporates for the first time in global treaties an administrative approach to liability. This book examines the Supplementary Protocol from both practitioner and academic perspectives. In its three parts the book explores the historical development, legal significances, and future implementation of the core provisions of the Supplementary Protocol, focusing specifically on its incorporation of an administrative approach to liability for biodiversity damage and its relation to civil liability. Contributors to the volume include Co-Chairs of the negotiating group and the negotiators and advisors from some of the key negotiating Parties, offering valuable insights into the difficult-to-read provisions of the Supplementary Protocol. The book demonstrates the significant changes in the political configuration of environmental treaty negotiations which have come about in the twenty-first century, and argues that the liability approach of the Supplementary Protocol has important implications for future development of international liability regimes under international environmental law.

Acclaim for the first edition: Backhaus s book is a good companion. Pablo Salvador Coderch, Indret A most valuable collection of papers serving to provide the reader both with an overview of some key areas in law and economics and with a biographical introduction to the work of some important, if also neglected, sources of scholarship in the discipline. Anthony I. Ogus, CBE, University of Manchester, UK This thoroughly updated and revised edition of a popular and authoritative reference work introduces the reader to the major concepts and leading contributors in the field of law and economics. The Companion features accessible, informative and provocative entries on all the significant issues, and breaks new ground by bringing together widely dispersed yet theoretically congruent ideas. Following a comprehensive introduction by the editor, the renowned contributors look in detail at several critical areas including: fundamentals of the law and economics approach private law and economics public law and economics labour law and economics regulation, taxation and public enterprise dispute resolution different sources of the law economic analysis of a legal problem classical authors in law and economics. Students and scholars interested in a comprehensive and rigorous overview of the field of law and economics will find this volume to be a unique and welcome resource. The Companion will also have a broad appeal amongst industrial economists and historians of economic thought.

At present there is no clear model under international law with which to determine compensation for environmental damage. After showing that no existing standard of compensation defined by the theory and practice of international law is adequate to cover all cases involving environmental damages - and that such a broad standard or set of standards may in fact be ultimately unachievable - the author of this important book develops a 'fair compensation' regime from an analysis of existing international dispute adjudication mechanisms, and presents this model as the best possible current approach to the conciliation of international responsibility and environmental interests.

A theoretical and practical analysis of the complex liability issues raised by carbon capture and storage systems for containing greenhouse gases. Carbon capture and storage (CCS) systems inject highly compressed carbon dioxide gas deep into geological formations in order to contain the gas, and its harmful effects on the planet, for the foreseeable future and beyond—for centuries or even millennia. Used effectively, CCS could lessen the impact of climate change while carbon-free energy sources are developed. And yet CCS is not widely deployed. In this book, Michael Faure and Roy Partain offer a theoretical and practical discussion of one of the main obstacles to CCS adoption: complex liability and compensation issues. Faure and Partain point out that current liability rules are unclear in their application to CCS. Causation is complicated, and the timeline of hundreds of years goes beyond the lifetimes of people or corporations. Examining the subject from legal and economic perspectives, they consider whether rules of civil liability can govern CCS risk; how a liability system might address the open-ended timeline; what role public and private regulatory measures could play; and whether compensation should be provided from public or private resources. They investigate the utility of different forms of insurance and of such financial tools as guarantees, deposits, and catastrophe bonds. They offer not only a rigorous framework for assessing policy but also a summary of policy recommendations they develop from their findings.