Civil Liability for Environmental Damage in Ethiopia. Legal and Institutional Analysis

Master's Thesis from the year 2020 in the subject Law - Public Law / Miscellaneous, grade: 3.5, Ethiopian Civil Service University (Law and Federalism), course: International Environmental Law, language: English, abstract: The main research question of this thesis is: Does the Ethiopian legal system put in place a civil liability regime for damage on environment? What does this civil liability regime look like? Industrial and other activities by private entities have the capacity to damage the environment thereby causing environmental damage invariably. To tackle this problem, governments around the world has developed laws and policies having the aim of reducing the impacts that human activities are causing on the environment and preventing damage. The ne plus ultra of these laws is achieving a clean, healthy and sustained environment. Civil liability is a type of liability regime adopted by countries to make private entities accountable for harm they create on the environment knowingly or negligently. Environmental liability, in one or another way is subjected two the civil liability regime. Numerous countries put environmental liability so that it would be governed by principles and rules of tort liability, which deals with all types of damages indifferently. However, the natures inherent with in environmental liability becomes problematic whenever we try to apply the existing tort rules and procedures. These problems include the difficulty in proving the cause of damage (causal-effect relationship) by already instilled tort rules. Besides, environmental liability demands remedy beyond compensation in order to protect the environment proactively. This thesis therefore addresses these issues giving particular emphasis on the Ethiopian civil liability regimes. In an attempt to elucidate the problems and give possible recommendations, a thorough analysis on liability regimes adopted by Ethiopian laws dealing with environmental issues are assessed. Furthermore, institutions mandated to protect the environment and enforce these liability rules or EPO's are scrutinized based on fulfillment of their mandated roles.

Kibru Debebe (LLB, LLM) is experienced senior attorney and former law lecturer with a demonstrated history of working in Banking industry.