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Pereira_Ricardo_sw Dr. Ricardo Pereira

A Critical Evaluation of the New EU Environmental Crime Directive 2024/1203

21 November 2024 (updated 2 weeks, 2 days ago) // english

After just over two years of negotiations, the EU Environmental Crime Directive 2024/1203 was finally published in April 2024. The Directive considerably improves on the text of the previous EU Environmental Crime Directive of 2008, which was introduced in the aftermath of the ECJ rulings on Environmental Crimes (2005) and Ship-Source Pollution (2007). The 2008 Directive has been subject to considerable criticism, including for the fact that it lacks detailed rules on criminal penalties or more advanced mechanisms for interstate cooperation to combat transboundary environmental crimes. In response, the 2024 Directive not only extends the number of environmental criminal offences in the EU Member States, but it also introduces specific types and levels of criminal penalties and specific rules on interstate cooperation in criminal matters. This article critically assesses to which extent the new EU rules improve the previous legal framework for combating environmental crimes. in particular with the expansion … Read more

Olsen-Lundh_sw Dr. Christina Olsen Lundh

The Revised EU Environmental Crime Directive
Changes and Challenges in EU Environmental Criminal Law with Examples from Sweden

21 November 2024 (updated 2 weeks, 2 days ago) // english

Environmental crime includes wildlife crimes, illegal waste dumping, substance smuggling, and illegal mining. These types of crime lead to habitat loss and species extinction, contribute to global warming, destabilise communities and economies, undermine security and development, and foster corruption. Often transnational in nature, environmental crime has become a lucrative industry for organised crime, which is underpinned by Europol research that has identified numerous criminal networks operating within the EU specializing in waste, pollution, and wildlife crimes. However, there is a lack of comprehensive data, which hampers evaluation and monitoring of measures by policymakers and practitioners. Limited awareness and scarce resource allocation for combating environmental crime is an overarching problem.
The Environmental Crime Directive adopted in 2008 aimed to address some of these issues, but the European Commission’s evaluation found that it did not have much effect in practice. In April 2024, a revised directive was adopted. It introduces several new … Read more

Foto Michael Faure 2_sw Prof. Dr. Michael Faure LL.M.

The Creation of an Autonomous Environmental Crime through the New EU Environmental Crime Directive

21 November 2024 (updated 2 weeks, 2 days ago) // english

On 11 April 2024, the EU adopted a new environmental crime directive to replace Directive 2008/99 of 19 November 2008. This article discusses why a new Directive in the area of environmental crime had become necessary. It particularly argues that the introduction of an autonomous environmental crime and a qualified offence of ecocide constitute important changes. The article points out other novelties, e.g. with regard to minimum sanctions and the collection of statistical data. They may substantially improve the enforcement of European environmental law through criminal law.

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Editorial Guest Editorial eucrim 2-2024

21 November 2024 (updated 2 weeks, 1 day ago) // english

Dear Readers, Breaches of environmental laws often cause substantial damage to people’s health and the environment. Unlawful pollution, waste dumping and trafficking, violations of wildlife protection, and illegal mining without development permission can have devastating effects. Moreover, environmental offences distort the level playing field for honest businesses and cause both direct and indirect losses to public finances (e.g., higher health expenditure). For the perpetrators, such offences are lucrative and for enforcement authorities not always visible while technically complex, which makes them difficult to investigate. For this reason, environmental transgressions – including environmental crimes – are on the rise. Given their… Read more

Garruto olaf_sw Luigi Igino Garruto / Grassin_olaf_sw Selina Grassin

Fighting Waste Trafficking in the EU: A Stronger Role for the European Anti-Fraud Office
The Reviewed Waste Shipment Regulation and its Enforcement Provisions

11 November 2024 (updated 2 weeks, 2 days ago) // english

On 20 May 2024, the new Waste Shipment Regulation (WSR) entered into force. The Regulation aims to better ensure that waste exported outside the EU is properly managed and to modernise shipment procedures to reflect the objectives of a circular economy and climate neutrality.
The new provisions include a mandate to the European Commission to carry out inspections in complex cross-border cases of illegal waste shipments. The Commission will entrust OLAF with implementing these enforcement powers. This will reaffirm and extend the role that the Office and its investigators have been playing in recent years under existing legal frameworks. In the future, OLAF will be able to act on its own initiative, not only in the case of illegal waste shipments entering, transiting or leaving the EU, but also for intra-EU shipments. The new rules will allow for a better fight against waste trafficking, contribute to the protection of the … Read more

Mar Jimeno-Bulnes_sw Prof. Dr. Mar Jimeno Bulnes

The European Public Prosecutor’s Office and Environmental Crime
Further Competence in the Near Future?

10 November 2024 (updated 2 weeks, 2 days ago) // english

This article envisages the possible extension of the European Public Prosecutor’s Office’s competences in the field of environmental protection. The author first presents an overview of the Office’s competences under the current legislation and, second, analyses suggestions on extending these competences specifically to the field of environmental crime. The case is made that a stronger, more comprehensive scope of competence for the EPPO would strengthen its position in the EU. This warrants an extension of the Office's jurisdiction to other types of crime, especially in the fight against cross-border crime such as environmental crime.

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