Tort and Regulatory Law in Italy
In an effort to synthesise a complex issue, one may say that the impact of administrative law rules on Italian tort law is at least twofold.
Liability for Failure to Regulate Health and Safety Risks
As one can notice, the discussion on liability of the State for failure to regulate health and safety risks is at a very early stage. Judicially, many jurisdictions have not yet been confronted with the question. Others have generally ruled on the issue only rarely and recently. Theoretically, an important doctrinal effort seems necessary to conceptualise, understand and delimit precisely the scope and the conditions of this specific case for liability. This paper was a first attempt to draw some conclusions from the viewpoint of positive law and to sketch some of the possible future scenarios. Our impression is that there is in our legal systems more space for this type of State liability than one would initially expect. Empirical data are necessary to precisely assess whether the court second-guessing could in fact achieve the objectives of the legal system. Our feeling is that the control by courts of State’s action or inaction to regulate health and safety risks is beneficial, at least in some circumstances. The delimitation of the scope of the control and the precise conditions for compensation needs to be further elaborated upon.
Study on the gaseous emissions from a landfill
Abstract Emissions from landfills contain a variety of compounds, organic and inorganic, which can create problems with human health. Here we examine the pollutants methane, hydrogen sulphite, mercaptans, sulphur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide and certain volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that are expected to be found in landfill emissions, in order to assess the environmental impact on the surrounding area. Results indicate that the concentrations in the landfill itself are quite high and in most cases above the ambient air quality limits, while for the surrounding area they are low. The problem is created by H 2 S and the mercaptans which, although in low content, have a distinct odour and cause problems to the neighbouring dwellings.