IL DECRETO LEGISLATIVO N. 231/2001 ALLA PROVA DEI REATI AMBIENTALI. Aspetti problematici di ascrizione della responsabilità all’ente.

My Phd research is focused on the theme of the extension of the corporate liability to environmental crimes. This “reform” has been realized by the legislative decree n. 121/2011 on which also corporations are responsible for environmental offences, as provided by the art. 25 undecies of the legislative decree n. 231/2001. The new statutory legislation puts into effect the European regulation: the EU directive 2008/99/CE on the protection of the environment through Criminal law, and the one 2009/123/CE relating to pollution caused by ships. My thesis, therefore, begins with the close examination of such hard European process that ends with the difficult transposition of the law by the Italian legal system. The research, then, considers the issues related to the principles of the legislative decree n. 231/2001, especially the principles provided by art. 5 and artt. 6 - 7. According to the first principle, the issue depends on the features of environmental crimes: these offences, in fact, are essentially contraventions so they can be intentional or committed by recklessness. Regarding the second principle, provided by articles 6 and 7, it’s difficult for corporations to set up a valid compliance programs to prevent environmental crimes. The legislative decree n. 121/2011, unfortunately, hasn’t a rule such as the art. 30 of the legislative decree n. 81/2008. For these reasons, my thesis has two purposes: the first, working out the issue between the principles of corporate liability with the features of environmental offences; the second, trying to offer few proposals concerning a new system of a corporate liability for environmental crimes.