European Court: The Terra dei Fuochi Case and Consequences
“(…) the European Court also addresses itself to the national legislator, requiring him to introduce criminal laws proportionate to the seriousness of facts that cause damage both to the environment and to the lives of people living in a particular area. It is also crucial, according to the Court, that statutes of limitation are guaranteed to be compatible with the complexity of proceedings and that the government refrains from adopting measures, such as criminal shields, that guarantee the impunity of polluters. In the past, the absence of an effective regulatory framework was one of the causes of the failure of some well-known judicial initiatives, such as the one against Eternit owners for asbestos deaths.”
