The “Green Gap” In Prosecution Of Environmental Crime

Sanskruti Harode, Symbiosis Law School, Pune

ABSTRACT

The concept of corporate criminal liability has been hotly debated ever since its inception. And using this judicial doctrine to tackle Corporations who engage in ‘Environmental crime’ has been a relatively recent development in law. The administrative and civil nature of the law enforcements that are in place to punish cases of environmental violations have proved to be insufficient in deterring other violators. Environmental crimes cannot be considered as a mere administrative disobedience. Whereas, to apply traditional criminal law approach to the environmental crimes committed by the corporations, common law principle of derivative liability is widely used. And thus, to hold the corporation accountable, individual liability needs to be established where the individual’s guilty mind has to be proven in the court by the prosecution. But a major loophole that exists in application of this approach is that tracing the liability to an individual becomes next to impossible since multiple guilty agents can exist, considering the complex and intricate structure of a corporate, specifically the big corporate entities. And this loophole creates a ‘green gap’ in the prosecution of the environmental crimes.