Mind the (Justiciability) Gap : Non-Judicial Remedies and International Legal Accountability for Environmental Damages

This paper endeavours to explore how international accountability can be triggered by affected people when no international liability mechanism is available. For that purpose, it addresses first the notion of accountability compared to that of legal responsibility strictly speaking, and builds on the notion of international legal accountability from the viewpoint of its external dimension (Part I). It then distinguishes between three kinds of situation where international accountability mechanisms can be used by affected people, depending of the type of actor (state, international organization, private enterprise) who caused environmental damages, and sketches out the role these mechanisms are intended to perform (Part II). Finally, this paper emphasizes the main differences between international legal accountability and international liability mechanisms and the consequences it suggests from the viewpoint of people affected by environmental harm (Part III)