Regulating legacy pollution: a comprehensive legal strategy for persistent chemicals

With chemical pollution at the top of international policy agendas – from plastics and microplastics to “forever chemicals” – the EU finds itself facing long existing problems. As more scientific evidence surfaces with regard to the impact of certain chemicals on the environment and on human health, persistent chemicals pose particular risks: once released into the environment, these do not easily degrade, but instead tend to accumulate, exposing ecosystems, wildlife and humans, to major hazards. The seriousness of these hazards increases with time, making legacy pollution from persistent chemicals a long-term problem. The EU regulates chemicals through a sectoral approach, risking to leave certain environmental pollution issues unresolved. This project will test the soundness of the EU legal framework addressing environmental pollution due to persistent pollutants, including whether it proves effective to that purpose and coherent in tackling the problem. After evaluating the current EU legal framework and identifying its potential shortcomings, a recommendation will be put forward resulting in a legal framework which can ensure that the principles guiding EU environmental policies are effectively pursued in dealing with legacy pollution. Building on the legal and practical challenges presented by a recognised problem affecting the environment and public health, the intention of this thesis is to lay down the best path forward to address legacy pollution on an EU level, namely with regard to persistent pollutants.