The civil responsibility in the Brazilian environmental law

Abstract

Law has assumed a predominant role in the risk management at the contemporary society, defined by many authors as a society of Risk. With that, new rights were set up and new instruments and ways of protection were created. The civil environmental responsibility has become one of the main instruments created to the management of environmental risks and it has been harmonizing with this new reality which is marked by scientific uncertainties, risks and global damages. This work intends to analyse the civil environmental responsibility in the Brazilian Law in order to contribute to its development and discussion. It was used the monographic method of research and the bibliographical and documentary inquiry techniques. Conclusions: (i) the result of a conduct must be understood as future damage, risk of damage or effective damage, and not only the last one; (ii) the Theory of Integral Risk and, consequently, the adoption of Theory of Equivalence of Conditions in the evaluation of the causal nexus are most adequate to the protection of the environment in the present context; (iii) the civil environmental responsibility is suitable to fight against damages and the generation of risks, if the Theory of the Integral Risk is adopted and there is the imposition of daily fines to restrict the practice of harmful conducts.