Deuxièmement, nous devons aborder la contradiction existant entre les deux facteurs intervenant dans ce type d’accident: la célérité des décisions pratiques et des mesures visant à traiter l’urgence environnementale survenue, d’une part, et la question, nettement plus longue à trancher, des critères juridiques applicables aux litiges, liée aux problèmes d’identification des personnes responsables au premier chef, d’autre part.
On the other, we need to deal with the contradiction between the two factors which come into play in this type of accident: urgent practical decisions and measures for dealing with the environmental emergency which has taken place and the much more time-consuming issue of the legal requirements relating to disputes, together with the problems of identifying the people ultimately responsible, resulting from the tangle of interests in the field of maritime traffic, something which this House has repeatedly condemned.
