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Perry-Kessaris, Amanda --- "Corporate Liability for Environmental Harm" [2010] ELECD 605; in Fitzmaurice, Malgosia; Ong, M. David; Merkouris, Panos (eds), "Research Handbook on International Environmental Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2010)

Book Title: Research Handbook on International Environmental Law

Editor(s): Fitzmaurice, Malgosia; Ong, M. David; Merkouris, Panos

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781847201249

Section: Chapter 17

Section Title: Corporate Liability for Environmental Harm

Author(s): Perry-Kessaris, Amanda

Number of pages: 16

Extract:

17 Corporate liability for environmental harm*
Amanda Perry-Kessaris



Introduction
This chapter explores issues of special relevance to corporate liability for environmental
harm. The term environmental harm is employed in a broad sense, including damage to
humans, animals, plant life, water, soil and so on. Where relevant, a distinction will be drawn
between liability for harm to the environment, and liability for damage to human interests
which result from harm to the environment.
The first half of the chapter explores some essential conflicts between the legal structure
of corporations, and the desire of regulators and victims seeking to hold them liable for their
environmental harm. The corporate form is a construct of national legal systems. The specific
structure and operation of corporations varies globally, but the basic components are legal
personality, limited liability, transferable shares, and management by a board and ownership
by investors (Kraakman et al., 2004: 1, 5­15). Of these, it is a corporation's legal personality
and limited liability which are of particular relevance to the topic of liability for environ-
mental harm. The former ensures that corporations enjoy many of the same rights as human
beings, and some of the responsibilities, but no allowance is made for the fact that they have
no soul. The latter affords corporations with substantial opportunities to restrict and even
avoid liability for their environmental harm.
The second half of this chapter explores what progress has been made at the international
level towards ensuring that corporations are liable for their ...