The criminal of occupational diseases. A study of the Eternit trial in Turin (2009-2014)

When it comes to occupational injury, disease, and fatalities, the use of criminal prosecution and punishment are the exception. This paper focuses on two loopholes in legal strategy that make it difficult for determined social actors and committed prosecutors to secure conviction against corporate executives: they are the notions that industrial hazard is foreign to any notion of intention, fault or responsibility, and that the certainty of the causal link between exposure and damages must be established for each victim on a purely individual, rather than statistical, basis. The article shows how Italian prosecutors have sought to circumvent these loopholes in the Eternit asbestos maxi-trials, more or less successfully.