ABSTRACT
In recent years, environmental legislation around the world has put the onus on individuals, as well as corporations, to prevent pollution damage from manufacturing operations. The United States has led the way in putting the liability on individuals in its environmental legislation and US courts have liberally chosen to hold corporate officers, managers, etc. liable, whether or not the corporation is found liable. In Scandinavia, corporate managers can be found criminally liable for transgressions of environmental statutes for which the corporation had some responsibility and of which they, as individuals, had some knowledge. Other countries have followed suit by ensuring that individuals, as well as corporations, can be charged with environmental offences of which they had some knowledge and in making environmental infractions criminal offences. The US Superfund program under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA) has made various parties strictly and retroactively liable for the cost of remedial actions at selected waste sites even if sites were approved, transporters licensed and wastes registered. However, this has now been taken a step further
and legislation is being passed where directors, officers and managers of corporations can be found criminally and strictly liable for a pollution offence, even though they were not aware of the pollution act or its background, the corollary being that they should have been aware.
