The role of common law in environmental policy

Exploring the Impact of Legal Systems and Financial Structure on Corporate Responsibility

“…Céline Gainet (Boyer, 2005) Dominant role to shareholders (Crane and Matten, 2004) Common law remedies that protect environmental rights -although effective in many cases -are often considered insufficient (Lowry and Edmunds, 2000;Schoenbrod, 1999;Sollner, 1994). Due to informational problems and the large number of individuals often involved (Sollner, 1994), statutory law is needed: long-term reforms must be left to the legislators, whether in Parliament or in the EU (Cocks, 2000) In the English legal system, the Human Rights Act 1999 has some possible impacts on the substantive law and the potential liability of the state for failure to provide adequate levels of production (Hart, 2000;Tromans, 2001) Civil law countries/ German civil law countries -the continental European model…”

“…Voluntary (and mandatory) disclosure levels are lower in civil-law countries (Hope and Pope, 2003;Jaggi and Low, 2000;Webb et al, 2008) A conservative (continental) welfare state regime (Palier et al, 2001) Countries ''whose governments play a large role in the economy, emphasize distributional considerations, and favor employees over capital-owners when the two conflict'' (Roe, 2000) Stakeholders other than shareholders also play an important role, sometimes even equivalent to or above that of shareholders; employees are among the most important stakeholders (Crane and Matten, 2004) leading to an active employment policy, an employment protection, and job stability (Amable, 2003) With statute law, there is no guarantee for an efficient outcome as the legislative process is influenced by different pressure-groups pursuing their own interests (Sollner, 1994). However, statute law has the capacity to adopt broader, more inclusive solutions Comparing environmental concerns to social ones, Civil Law country executives have been found to rank ecological concerns lower than social concerns (Canarutto and Nidasio 2005;Fernández and Melé, 2005) 199 Impact of Legal Systems and Financial Structure on CR that firm size has an important impact on CR levels.…”

“…Due to informational problems and the large number of individuals often involved (Sollner, 1994), statutory law is needed: long-term reforms must be left to the legislators, whether in Parliament or in the EU (Cocks, 2000) In the English legal system, the Human Rights Act 1999 has some possible impacts on the substantive law and the potential liability of the state for failure to provide adequate levels of production (Hart, 2000;Tromans, 2001) Civil law countries/ German civil law countries -the continental European model…”

On the Joint Use of Liability and Safety Regulation

“…Shavell (1984b) provides a comprehensive non-technical analysis of the subject. More recent articles include Rose-Ackerman (1991), Söllner (1994Söllner ( , 1996 and Schwarze (1996). 2 The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (1982) imposes technological regulations on the generation of toxic wastes, while under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (1979) victims can sue generators of hazardous wastes for the recovery of compensatory and punitive damages.…”