Legal exploration of the relationship between corporate social responsibility and environmental civil liability

All people (natural as well as legal persons) are responsible for environmental protection. This means that any person obliges to compensate for the damages which is called legal responsibility. In this article the inner relation between civil liability and social responsibility in context of environmental responsibility is explored. Material and methods. This research is conducted qualitatively by context analysis approach. National as well as international documents related to civil liability, corporate social responsibility and environmental responsibility of natural and legal persons and their interconnections were defined and evaluated by library studies. To explore the relation between environmental civil liability and social responsibility, their parameters were analyzed separately and their districts, objectives and principals were analyzed comparatively. To understand the relationship between environmental civil liability and social responsibility, first they were explained and analyzed separately; then, in terms of territory, goals, customary practice and pillars, an analytical comparison is made between these two responsibilities and in each section, it is stated which of the logical relations is established between them.

Earth is the only living ecosystem, and due to the interaction between the main elements of life, the destruction and pollution of each elements of the environment, human life is in great danger. Results showed that there is obvious a logical relation between civil liability and social responsibility in which there are some common features between them in term of considering social values. However, there are differences between these two responsibilities in which civil liability is merely considering present needs and values, while social responsibility considers present and future generations simultaneously.

There is a structural difference between civil liability and social responsibility in context of environmental protection in which civil liability as a branch of legal responsibility is going to improve social life, while social responsibility is seeking to upgrade human-environment relation to protect the environment. In civil liability, the main objective is to compensate damages to persons and assets, while social responsibility emphasizes to prevent environmental damage.