Lloyd's Maritime and Commercial Law Quarterly
BOOK REVIEW - CORPORATIONS AND CRIMINAL RESPONSIBILITY
CORPORATIONS AND CRIMINAL RESPONSIBILITY. Celia Wells, Lecturer in Law, Cardiff Law School. Clarendon Press, Oxford (1993) xvii and 149 pp., plus 11 pp. Appendix and 5 pp. Index. Hardback £22.50.
ZEEBRUGGE: LEARNING FROM DISASTER: Lessons in Corporate Responsibility. Stuart Crainer. Herald Charitable Trust, 11 Lamb Street, London E1 6EA (1993) xvi and 164 pp., plus 6 pp. Index. Hardback £12.95.
DISASTERS: WHERE THE LAW FAILS: A New Agenda for Dealing with Corporate Violence. David Bergman. Herald Charitable Trust, 11 Lamb Street, London E1 6EA (1993) viii and 72 pp., plus 4 pp. Appendices. Paperback £5 inclusive of packing and postage.
DISASTERS: FOCUSING ON MANAGEMENT RESPONSIBILITY. Peter Young. Herald Charitable Trust, 11 Lamb Street, London E1 6EA (1993) vii and 69 pp., plus 2 pp. Index. Paperback £5 inclusive of packing and postage.
Common to these works, all of which derive inspiration from the Zeebrugge disaster, is a concern for safety and a desire to establish an adequate framework for imputing criminal responsibility to companies in respect of management fault. Crainer’s description would serve for all: the tale is one of disasters which show incompetence, lack of foresight, irresponsibility, error, and misjudgment within the systems, outlook and personnel of the company. The crucial issue is of management failures and how these may best be dealt with in the legal systems.
Although these works differ in emphasis, they all stress a lack of corporate commitment to
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