‘New’ Environmental Liabilities: The Purpose and Scope of the Contaminated Land Regime and the Environmental Liability Directive

Environmental liability as a part of administrative law is increasingly significant and controversial, and the proliferation of schemes creates difficult legal problems. This article examines in some detail the provisions of two of the most significant liability regimes, relating to contaminated land under the Environmental Protection Act 1990 and to environmental damage under the Environmental Liability Directive. It concentrates on the different rationales of the two schemes, using those different rationales to examine the differences between the schemes. The most dramatic differences in purpose are the historic versus contemporary origin of the harm addressed, and this explains some of the most dramatic differences in approach. But the two schemes do not have entirely separate paths, and their purposes are neither self-contained nor exclusive.