Europe Shines a Spotlight on Environmental Crime

BRUSSELS, Belgium, December 2, 2003 (ENS) - Legal experts from around Europe debated environmental crime and how to deal with it at a conference sponsored by the European Commission in Brussels Thusday and Friday. The meeting showcased the wide variety of approaches to sanctions around the European Union.

Speakers expressed concern over Italian government moves to decriminalize environmental offenses. Breaches of building and hunting regulations, air and marine quality rules, and ozone layer protection rules, as well as norms on the marketing and labeling of dangerous substances would become administrative offenses under a draft Italian decree that came before the Cabinet earlier this year.

Measured by attendance, the conference appears to have achieved a key Commission goal of raising awareness of environmental crime. According to conference chairman Dr. Ludwig Kramer, 50 people were expected but 300 eventually attended. Another 100 individuals had to be turned away.

Dr. Ludwig Kramer is trained as a lawyer and holds a doctorate in consumer law from Hamburg University. He has published extensively on European Community environmental law, and is a visiting professor at both Bremen University and the Faculty of Laws, University College London. (Photo courtesy UCL Faculty of Laws)

Debate then switched to the criminal and administrative sanctions in place around Europe to deter environmental crime. In advance of the meeting, the Commission published an extensive survey of criminal penalties and of organized eco-crime in both current and future EU member states. Next May the European Union will expand to the east as 10 countries become full fledged member states.

Kramer, a senior official with the European Commission who is currently head of the unit on environmental governance in the Environment Directorate, said he hoped the conference would help to close knowledge gaps.

"We all have an idea that there is environmental crime, but very little hard facts and figures. And from that, discussions on enforcement are emotionalized," he said. "We have to get away from this and examine soberly the extent of environmental crime, existing sanctions and how they are applied in practice, and how to improve."

The future of environmental criminal law in Europe is hanging in the balance while the European Court of Justice deliberates over a crucial judgement. Competing frameworks for prosecuting and punishing violators of environmental laws have been proposed by the European Commission and the governments of EU member states. The court will decide which framework will prevail.

In January, EU government ministers approved a law requiring serious environmental offenses to be prosecuted as crimes across the bloc.

The law requires member states to declare certain polluting activities as punishable under criminal rather than less punitive administrative law. Crimes should result in "effective, proportionate and dissuasive" penalties, including imprisonment and possible extradition.

Environmental crimes can prove deadly as these graves testify. On October 21, 1966 a waste tip slid down a mountainside into the Welsh mining village of Aberfan, killing 144 people, 116 of them school children. (Photo courtesy FreeFoto)

The offenses to be classed as crimes are the unlawful discharge of substances into air, soil or water and the handling of waste or radioactive materials such as to cause "substantial damage" to the environment or "death or serious injury" to people.

Unlawful handling of protected wildlife and trading in ozone depleting substances will also be crimes. Member states were given until January 2005 to bring their national laws into line with the decision.

The European Commission and Parliament, who oppose the governments' approach to environmental crime before the Court of Justice, argue that violations of EU environmental laws must be made criminal offenses by involving the Commission and Parliament. A wider range of offenses is proposed under this framework.

The stand-off reflects tensions between forces who want a more federal Europe and those in favor of a more intergovernmental approach. A judgement is likely towards the end of 2004.

{Published in cooperation with ENDS Environment Daily, Europe's choice for environmental news. Environmental Data Services Ltd, London. Email: envdaily@ends.co.uk}