Keywords
Summary

Keywords

1. Environment – Waste – Directive 75/442 – Concept of waste

(Council Directive 75/442, as amended by Decision 96/350)

2. Environment – Waste – Directive 75/442 – Accidental spillage of hydrocarbons at sea causing pollution of the coastline of a Member State

(Art. 174(2), EC; Council Directive 75/442, as amended by Decision 96/350, Art. 15)

3. International agreements – International Convention on Civil Liability for Oil Pollution Damage – International Convention on the Establishment of an International Fund for Compensation for Oil Pollution Damage

(Council Decision 98/392)

4. Environment – Waste – Directive 75/442 – Accidental spillage of hydrocarbons at sea causing pollution of the coastline of a Member State

(Council Directive 75/442, as amended by Decision 96/350, Arts 1(b) and (c), and 15)

Summary

1. A substance such as heavy fuel oil sold as a combustible fuel does not constitute waste within the meaning of Directive 75/442 on waste, as amended by Decision 96/350, where it is exploited or marketed on economically advantageous terms and is capable of actually being used as a fuel without requiring prior processing.

Hydrocarbons accidentally spilled at sea following a shipwreck, mixed with water and sediment and drifting along the coast of a Member State until being washed up on that coast, constitute waste within the meaning of Article 1(a) of that directive, where they are no longer capable of being exploited or marketed without prior processing.

(see paras 48, 63, operative part 1-2)

2. The application of the ‘polluter pays’ principle within the meaning of the second sentence of the first subparagraph of Article 174(2) EC and Article 15 of Directive 75/442 on waste, as amended by Decision 96/350, would be frustrated if persons involved in causing waste, whether holders or former holders of the waste or even producers of the product from which the waste came, escaped their financial obligations as provided for by that directive, even though the origin of the hydrocarbons which were spilled at sea, albeit unintentionally, and caused pollution of the coastal territory of a Member State was clearly established.

(see paras 71-72)

3. The Community is not bound by the International Convention on Civil Liability for Oil Pollution Damage or the International Convention on the Establishment of an International Fund for Compensation for Oil Pollution Damage. In the first place, the Community has not acceded to those international instruments and, in the second place, it cannot be regarded as having taken the place of its Member States, if only because not all of them are parties to those conventions, or as being indirectly bound by those conventions as a result of Article 235 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea signed at Montego Bay on 10 December 1982, which entered into force on 16 November 1994 and was approved by Decision 98/392, paragraph 3 of which confines itself to establishing a general obligation of cooperation between the parties to the convention.

(see para. 85)

4. For the purposes of applying Article 15 of Directive 75/442 on waste, as amended by Decision 96/350, to the accidental spillage of hydrocarbons at sea causing pollution of the coastline of a Member State:

– the national court may regard the seller of those hydrocarbons and charterer of the ship carrying them as a producer of that waste within the meaning of Article 1(b) of Directive 75/442, and thereby as a ‘previous holder’ for the purposes of applying the first part of the second indent of Article 15 of that directive, if that court, in the light of the elements which it alone is in a position to assess, reaches the conclusion that that seller-charterer contributed to the risk that the pollution caused by the shipwreck would occur, in particular if he failed to take measures to prevent such an incident, such as measures concerning the choice of ship;

– if it happens that the cost of disposing of the waste produced by an accidental spillage of hydrocarbons at sea is not borne by the International Oil Pollution Compensation Fund, or cannot be borne because the ceiling for compensation for that accident has been reached, and that, in accordance with the limitations and/or exemptions of liability laid down, the national law of a Member State, including the law derived from international agreements, prevents that cost from being borne by the shipowner and/or the charterer, even though they are to be regarded as ‘holders’ within the meaning of Article 1(c) of Directive 75/442, such a national law will then, in order to ensure that Article 15 of that directive is correctly transposed, have to make provision for that cost to be borne by the producer of the product from which the waste thus spread came. In accordance with the ‘polluter pays’ principle, however, such a producer cannot be liable to bear that cost unless he has contributed by his conduct to the risk that the pollution caused by the shipwreck will occur.

(see paras 78, 82, 89, operative part 3)