Abstract
The wide-ranging adverse changes caused by hydropower in freshwater ecosystems call for implementing environmental responsibility on the part of the hydropower sector. This article analyses ...the interplay between the two key EU legal instruments in this respect: the revision of out-dated hydropower permits required under the EU Water Framework Directive and operator liability for water damage under the Environmental Liability Directive. To complement this analysis, the article provides a concrete example of the two directives’ combined framework, or at least its multiple implementation challenges, using the specific case of one Member State; Finland. The article concludes that, although the two instruments have the potential to offer a rather powerful framework for environmental responsibility, realising this policy aspiration may be seriously undermined by problems in implementation. The insights presented call attention to the applicable means on both national as well as EU levels to rectify the situation.
The Environmental Liability Directive (ELD) focuses on remediating environmental damage. To assess environmental damage it uses existing assessment systems, and the constructs that are at the centre ...of these systems. One of these is ‘ecological status’ in the context of the Water Framework Directive (WFD). The ELD refers to the WFD with respect to what ‘water damage’ concerns, without specifying what it means and it offers no threshold for when deterioration is significant enough to count as ‘water damage’. A definition of ‘water damage’ is developed, based on the European Court of Justice’s latest rulings, which clarify when the deterioration of a body of water is so significant that it passes from ‘deterioration’ under the WFD, to ‘water damage’ under the ELD.
Many articles have commented on the duty to remediate environmental damage imposed by the Environmental Liability Directive (ELD). Few—if any—articles, however, have commented on the duty to prevent ...environmental damage imposed by it. This article begins to fill that gap by commenting on the duty to prevent damage to species and habitats protected by the Birds and Habitats Directives and damage to surface water under the Water Framework Directive.
The article illustrates the duty to prevent environmental damage by its application to two cases; one concerning a direct application of the duty; the other concerning an indirect application. The article concludes that the duty to prevent environmental damage under the ELD is a powerful catalyst that can trigger protective measures under the Birds, Habitats and Water Framework Directives.
This thesis is about the rights and liabilities arising under English and Chinese law in respect of the carriage of dangerous cargo. It is noted that the danger in dangerous cargoes was not ...necessarily something in the goods themselves, but might well lie in the way they were packaged, looked after or transported. Accordingly, the responsibilities and liabilities of the various parties with regards to the carriage of dangerous cargoes are usually intertwined and complex. The purpose of this thesis is to analyse and evaluate the dangerous cargoes liabilities in English and Chinese law, by providing suggestions for existing problems in each country based on three sources: contract, tort and statute. Moreover, the chain of causation and concept of remoteness has particular importance in order to establish liability and decide which type and what amount of damage is recoverable. This thesis compares both countries’ liability regimes and how to secure compensation for its victims, and the restoration of the environment, with reference to the EU Environmental Liability Directive and relevant international conventions. The author draws her final conclusions from four important issues: (1) the meaning of dangerous cargo, the packing and handling; (2) the scheme of liability; (3) the channelling of liability; and (4) the type of recoverable damage.
As vessel traffic in the Baltic increases, in particular oil transports from Russia to the international market, so too does the risk of oil spills which above the environmental impacts impose costs ...on society including direct costs, market costs and non-market costs (e.g., losses in welfare from a damaged environment not easily valued in a market). While financial compensation addresses direct and market costs, environmental compensation (compensatory restoration) offsets welfare declines from the loss of resources or the services they provide. Although a clear international system for recovering environmental restoration costs from oil spills is still un-established, the EU's Environmental Liability Directive (ELD) from 2007 introduces a number of useful terms and concepts that may be applicable in the Baltic context. The European Commission (EC) funded development of the REMEDE Toolkit to help Member States carry out the ELD requirements. The Toolkit provides a useful framework for assessing non-market costs associated with oil spill damages by defining the types of ecological losses suffered by the public and providing interdisciplinary methods for scaling resource-based compensation projects whose cost should be incurred by the responsible polluter(s). This paper suggests that the ELD concepts and REMEDE methods could be transferred to the Baltic to help authorities recover environmental restoration costs from responsible polluters. We illustrate application of REMEDE-like concepts and methods to oil spill damages in the context of US regulations and the UN Compensation Commission and discuss the legal acceptance of these methods. The fact that the ELD cannot legally be invoked to address an oil spill in Europe should not preclude a discussion about how these relatively new European legal concepts, including the REMEDE methodology, could be used to establish a more consistent, transparent, and replicable framework for damage assessment in the sensitive marine environment of the Baltic Sea.
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