Weighing up the EC Environmental Liability Directive

In spite of a lengthy gestation period, the Environmental Liability Directive left conceptual puzzles that have caused difficulties of transposition by Member States and of application by authorities, operators, third parties and insurance companies. This is largely due to the fact that the Directive ventures into highly sophisticated national legal and doctrinal traditions. Its history and terminology are re-examined in order to explain some of the difficulties. Both the added value and the drawbacks of the Directive are considered. Problems of transposing the Directive within the national legal systems of a number of selected Member States are considered, as well as the principles of direct effect in cases of insufficient transposition. It is concluded that although the Directive should have been improved, it does have merits in that it obliges Member States to develop their often rather haphazard national laws in this area into a more comprehensive and coherent system of obligations and powers coping with environmental damage.