The notion of joint and several liability in the context of environmental protection can be considered in at least two ways.
A restricted understanding of the concept relates to participation in the repair of damage. This is how, for example, we speak of "joint and several liability" (whereby each person responsible is liable for the entire damage, even if he or she then has a claim against his or her co-responsible parties). Civil (or extra-contractual) liability in environmental matters can be analyzed from this angle, and variations can be established according to liability systems.
A broader understanding focuses on the way in which the law, using a variety of techniques, distributes duties relating to environmental protection not only when damage occurs, but also further upstream, with regard to the internalization of externalities (tolerated damage), the prevention of damage, the response when damage occurs and it is a question of mitigating it, and finally - as we have just seen - the repair of damage.
This distinction between stages of (1) internalization of tolerated negative externalities, (2) prevention of significant (or non-tolerated) damage, (3) response aimed at mitigating damage immediately after it has occurred, and (4) damage repair, offers an analytical tool for mapping the various levels of solidarity - understood this time as distribution in the sense of the idea of distributive justice - envisaged by a norm, a legal technique, a field of law or, more generally, by a legal order (national law, supranational law and international law).
The aim of this presentation is to introduce this tool for analyzing solidarity in environmental protection, and then to analyze, from this angle, certain techniques drawn from various national, European and international laws.
