Bearing in mind that international law may not yet have a consensus on or a standard for corporate environmental responsibility and liability for disaster prevent, preparedness and management by multinationals operating, mainly through subsidiaries, in states other than their state of origin.

Curious to know whether the US and French governments’ approaches to corporate responsibility and liability in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon disaster and the Erika oil spill respectively can in any way be regarded as ‘best practice’ in this context.