Abstract:
Corporate Environmental crime is the violation of the provisions of laws pertaining to the protection of the environment by corporate bodies, their employees and agents (executives and managers) in the pursuit of corporate benefit which damages the environment and human health. Therefore, this research was conducted, from September 2018 to June 2019, with the principal aim of examining where the regulation of corporate environmental crimes through criminal liability stands under the laws and institutions in the Ethiopian legal system and the practice at Bahir Dar City Administration. To this end, both normative (doctrinal) and empirical (qualitative) research approach was employed for the study. Participants were purposively selected from ANRS; Environment, Forest and Wildlife Protection and Development Authority, Attorney General, Police Commission and Auditor General, and Bahir Dar City Administration; Urban cleanness and Green development Department, Police Department, Justice Bureau, First Instance Court and the city and its surrounding High Court, and West Gojjam Zone Justice Bureau. The open-ended questionnaire, unstructured interviews, and documents were instruments used for the purpose of collecting data. The collected data was analyzed through discourse analysis method by coupling description with evaluation. The result of this study depicted that, regardless of the existence of corporate environmental crimes, criminal liability for corporate environmental crimes in the study area has not been imposed before and during the study time. Hence, it was recommended that stakeholders should be acclimatized with the concept of corporate environmental crime; training should be given with respect to environmental laws containing criminal liability for corporate environmental crimes, the issue of corporate environmental crime should be necessarily considered as serious crime by both institutions and governmental officials, coordination and cooperation problems should be solved, institutional capacity should be improved, there should be a candid political commitment and finally investigation and prosecution of the previously committed corporate environmental crimes should be promptly commenced