Criminal Liability for Climate Disasters: From Caso Fortuito to Organizational Risk in the Anthropocene

In the Anthropocene, the escalating intensity of extreme weather phenomena is precipitating a structural crisis in traditional models of criminal negligence. This paper examines the erosion of irresistible natural fatality through a comparative, historical‑dogmatic analysis of the Italian caso fortuito and the Anglo‑American Act of God defense. It argues that anthropogenic climate change, combined with the rise of AI‑driven predictive technologies, transforms natural uncertainty into a governable factor, fundamentally reshaping the metric of criminal foreseeability. Using the Italian Supreme Court’s Rigopiano ruling as a global case study, the article explores the epistemological cleavage between immanent “danger” and organizational “risk”. It contends that public administrators’ liability is shifting from synchronous emergency management to the anticipatory breach of multi‑level planning and precautionary duties. Ultimately, the paper outlines a renewed paradigm of normative fault capable of addressing systemic macro‑environmental risks and bridging the gap toward restorative environmental justice.