Faraway, so close: the stakes of Deepwater horizon oil spill seen from France

This article presents the NRDA (Natural Resource Damage Assessment) that was devised by the American National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in 1996 to deal with the issue of compensating environmental damage. NRDA provides a clear framework for the different sides (victims, responsible persons...) involved in redressing environmental damage. The key element of this procedure is to impose remedial actions to be taken for recovering the initial state of the environment rather than to pay direct financial compensation. The European directive on the environmental accountability has been inspired by NRDA. (A.C.)