Beyond Deterrence

Rehabilitative Environmental Governance, Corporate Compliance, and Environmental Recidivism in Kenya

Abstract

Persistent environmental non-compliance in Kenya raises a core governance puzzle: why do firms continue to violate environmental rules despite a comparatively elaborate statutory framework, licensing system, and arsenal of sanctions? This paper argues that the problem cannot be understood through deterrence alone. Drawing on deterrence theory, responsive regulation, compliance-assurance scholarship, Situational Action Theory, and techniques of neutralization, the article reframes corporate environmental offending as a behavioral governance problem produced by the interaction between organizational propensity and regulatory exposure. Methodologically, the study combines a PRISMA-informed review of 62 scholarly and policy sources with qualitative coding of 27 National Environment Tribunal (NET) decisions from 2014 to 2025, which are interpreted alongside major disputes such as the Owino-Uhuru lead-contamination litigation. The analysis shows three recurring patterns. First, enforcement remains predominantly sanction-led, with fines and administrative penalties as the primary responses. Second, adjudicatory and regulatory reasoning rarely probes internal governance systems, executive incentives, or corporate moral reasoning. Third, structured rehabilitative tools such as Corrective Action Plans, environmental probation, and independent compliance verification are largely absent. The paper’s central contribution is the concept of rehabilitative environmental governance: an enforcement architecture that retains deterrence but links sanctions to diagnosis, remediation, executive accountability, and monitored behavioral reform. In the Kenyan context, this model offers a more credible path to reducing regulatory recidivism, strengthening environmental rights protection, and moving environmental enforcement from episodic punishment toward durable compliance.