Environmental Crime

Few criminological studies have examined the extent of environmental crime and punishment, and little is known about how widespread environmental crimes are in society or the kinds of punishments environmental crimes receive. This is surprising and problematic. This outcome is surprising given the rapid growth of green criminology in recent years, and problematic because the paucity of studies examining the extent of environmental crime constrains the boundaries of criminological knowledge in a discipline already inclined to study street crimes as opposed to other types of crime. The present study addresses these issues by examining the volume and formal responses to one type of environmental crime in the US that green criminologists have often overlooked: hazardous waste crime. The data used are a ten-year aggregation of hazardous waste violations, corrective actions, enforcement actions, and fines covering 1999–2008. Data were aggregated by state, and the distribution of these crimes was examined across states. The results indicate that the number of reported hazardous waste crime varies significantly across states, and that rates of punishments for these crimes are relatively low and consist of relatively small fines. The violation rate data also seems to suggest that hazardous waste environmental violations may be significantly underreported in official data.

Since first proposed by Brisman and South, green cultural criminology has sought to interrogate human-environment interactions in order to locate meaning. Within the broad framework of green cultural criminology, work has emerged that follows visual criminology in looking to the visual cultural register for insights into the intersections of crime, harm, justice, culture and the natural environment. This article turns the green cultural criminological gaze towards motion pictures, by considering how cinema can serve as a central and essential site of the cultural production and communication of knowledge and meaning(s) that inform human interactions with the natural environment. Indeed, environmental crimes, harms, and disasters are constructed and imagined and represented in cinema, and the films discussed in this article illustrate the ways in which the environment-culture connection in the contemporary cinematic mediascape has influenced public discourses concerning environmental change and harm. This article begins by examining the capacity of documentary film to raise public awareness and generate shifts in public consciousness about environmental harms. From here, it explores cinematic science fiction representations of apocalyptic climate disaster, noting the power of the medium in communicating contemporary anxieties surrounding climate change. Finally, filmic communications of a central category of interest for green cultural criminology—resistance to environmental harm—are described, in addition to the various ways that resistance by environmentalists has recently been represented in popular cinema. The films discussed throughout—including An Inconvenient Truth, Cowspiracy, The East, If A Tree Falls, Night Moves, and Snowpiercer—are not an exhaustive sampling of contemporary representations of environmental issues in cinema. Rather, they represent the most salient—and are among the most popular—moments of contemporary cinematic engagement with the nexus of environmental harm and culture. This article concludes by contending that a green cultural criminology should continue to look to the visual register because sites of cultural production often overlooked by criminology (e.g., cinema, literature) can reveal significant and essential information about the moments in which environmental harm, justice, and culture intersect and collide.

On the obscured effects of sanctions when dealing with environmental crime Environmental crime has serious consequences for nature, the safety and health of individuals, and the economy. Environmental crime includes the illegal discharge of waste into soil or water, drug waste dumping (toxic waste from the production of synthetic drugs that is dumped in nature conservation areas), illegal emissions by heavy and/or chemical industries, manure fraud and the illegal trafficking in (toxic) waste. In the Netherlands alone, the damage caused by environmental crime amounts to several billion euros per year. The law is an important tool for reducing or preventing environmental crime. However, research done in recent years shows that there is insufficient insight into the system of supervision and enforcement to address environmental crime. For example, more insight is needed into the functioning of and any bottlenecks in the criminal justice chain as regards addressing environmental law transgressions. Research must show which criminal law of administrative law response or sanction is best suited for specific types of environmental crime and types of offenders. In this contribution, we first focus on the administrative and criminal law contexts of dealing with transgressions of environmental law. Hereafter, we consider the question of what is known from past research about the functioning of the system of supervision of environmental law in the Netherlands. Next, we reflect on the question: What do we actually know about the effects of (criminal) sanctions on environmental crime (what works?)? We conclude this contribution with a short conclusion and a call for more research into this important topic. We hope that such research may contribute to a better understanding of the effects of legal sanctions and the achievement of policy goals in the environmental law domain.

Background and Aim: Considering the significance of prevention as one of the most important issues in ethical and legal systems, and increasing the risk of environmental crimes, this study aimed to analyze the prevention of environmental crimes in the light of UN guidelines. Materials and Methods: This analytical study examines the prevention of environmental crimes in the light of the UN guidelines. This analysis is done based on the ethical principle of prevention of harm. Findings: Given the globalization of environmental damages, green criminologists have focused on the principle of no harm. They have recognized environmental harm as the criterion in the definition of the environmental crime rather than criminalization. The United Nations has adopted guidelines for the prevention of crime in 1996 and 2002 in the Economic Council to promote crime prevention programs at the national level. The key principles in these guidelines included: government governance, crime prevention in social and economic policies; participatory prevention; accountability; sustainability; cost-benefit analysis; knowledge-based; compliance with the Human rights; solidarity, Interdependency and differentiation. Conclusion: The utilization of the principles of the United Nations Guidelines focusing on the ethical Principle of Prevention of harm, can help us to prevent environmental crimes. In order to prevent environmental damage and harm, participation of the civil society in the field of protection of environment is recommended through providing access of the citizens and empowering them, as well as, supporting community-based and non-governmental organizations. Please cite this article as: Mirkamali AR, Hajivand A. Analyzing the Prevention of Environmental Crimes in the light of the United Nations Guidelines based on the Ethical Principle of Prevention of Harm. Bioethics Journal 2017; 7(26): 61-75.

The publication of a Policy Paper on Case Selection and Prioritization (the “Policy Paper”) by the Office of the Prosecutor (“OTP”) of the International Criminal Court (“ICC”) in September 2016 has reignited the longstanding discussion about the status of environmental crimes under international law. The Policy Paper expressed the intention of the OTP to consider, in the selection of crimes to be submitted to the jurisdiction of the ICC, those committed through, or resulting in, “the destruction of the environment, the illegal exploitation of natural resources or the illegal dispossession of land.” Such wording soon gained widespread attention, prompting many news outlets to declare that, from now on, the ICC would focus on prosecuting “environmental crimes.” The news sources’ enthusiasm, however, appears misplaced for several reasons. The first and foremost objection comes from a consideration of the ICC’s limited jurisdiction. In fact, this is strictly confined by the Rome Statute to the prosecution of “the most serious crimes of [international] concern,” currently identified as the genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and aggression. The only reference to the environment that appears in the Rome Statute is included in Article 8.2(b)(iv), which lists among the activities constituting a war crime the act of, “[i]ntentionally launching an attack in the knowledge that such attack will cause . . . widespread, long-term and severe damage to the natural environment.” Given the limited attention to the environment, it would be difficult to maintain that the ICC has jurisdiction over “environmental crimes,” unless it could be shown that such jurisdiction either (i) may be derived implicitly from the current description under the Rome Statute of the crime of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity, or (ii) has been extended by virtue of the creation of a new rule of international law, either customary or treaty-based. Most importantly, though, the possibility for the ICC to prosecute “environmental crimes” seems prevented by the failure to find a satisfactory definition for this notion. In the legal practice, this expression doesn’t have any authoritative meaning, as international treaties remain completely silent on the issue. And while several attempts at a definition have been made, as will be examined in more detail below, each of them raises several doubts and concerns. Many of the suggested definitions are, in fact, characterized by the lack of clarity with respect to the different sources from which the liability for “environmental crimes” arises and the specific consequences attached thereto. Indeed, such definitions indiscriminately consider: (i) the criminal liability of an individual arising from the breach of a rule of national environmental law; (ii) the criminal liability of an individual arising from the breach of a rule of international environmental law; and (iii) the liability of the State arising from the breach of a rule of international environmental law, whether customary or treaty-based. Of these three options, only the second would seem viable to serve as a foundation of the ICC’s jurisdiction over environmental crimes. The picture that emerges from the above-mentioned remarks shows that there is still widespread confusion on the consideration to be attributed to environmental crimes under international law, as well as the possibility of seeking prosecution for these crimes before an international tribunal. The purpose of this Note is to address such confusion and shed some light on the treatment that environmental crimes receive under international law. To do so, Part II provides a brief and general overview of the principles of international criminal law, with particular respect to: (i) its definition and the features distinguishing it from other overlapping branches of international law; (ii) the crimes that can be considered as belonging to its realm; and (iii) its sources and the possibility for it to evolve over time. Part III discusses what the term “environmental crime” means and which specific offenses, if any, may be punishable under international criminal law. In doing so, this Part will focus on the fundamental difference between “crimes under international law” and “transnational crimes” and the differences in the regimes applicable to each category. Lastly, Part IV discusses the current limits of the ICC’s jurisdiction and, in particular, the possibility of extending it to the prosecution of crimes, including environmental crimes not currently captured by the Rome Statute. Accordingly, this Part examines the potential impact of the Policy Paper in changing the scope of the ICC’s jurisdiction, as well as the relevance of other proposals advanced by academics and scholars to extend the ICC’s jurisdiction to environmental crimes. In this context, relevance will be given to the introduction of a crime of “ecocide” as a fifth crime against peace, and to the amendment of the description of the crimes provided under the Rome Statute through customary international law.

This chapter begins by reminding readers how green cultural criminology—a cross-fertilisation of green criminology and cultural criminology—has attempted to: (1) examine the way(s) in which environmental crimes, harms, and disasters are constructed and represented by the news media and in popular cultural forms; (2) highlight and analyse patterns of consumption, constructed consumerism, commodification of nature, and related market processes; and (3) explore the contestation of space, transgression, and resistance, in order to understand the ways in which environmental harms are opposed in/on the streets and in day-to-day living. Acknowledging that green cultural criminology, like criminology more generally, has developed somewhat of an urban and northern bias, the authors take the opportunity in this chapter to tackle green cultural criminology’s northern predisposition. The authors weave together green, cultural, and Southern criminologies through the exposition of several key issues, including ‘the South’ as a context in which exploitative global forces may exercise power. Focussing on the construction of environmental crimes, harms, and disasters in popular cultural forms, the authors contemplate examples of Latin American cultural narratives of human–environment relationships (from the nineteenth century (e.g., Sarmiento 1845) to twentieth- and twenty-first-century presentations of tales old and new (such as The Magic Bean Tree: A Legend from Argentina (Van Laan 1998) and The Future According to Luz, a two-book graphic novel series by the Chilean-born Claudia Davila (2011, 2012)). The authors conclude by identifying several examples of possible directions in which the intersection of green, cultural, and Southern criminologies might proceed, including studies of energy integration and diversification in Latin America and critical interpretations of media and popular narrative depictions of environmental issues within the Global South.

From past to present, global compressions on human and environmental systems are more likely to increase than ever before in human history. With the science and technology advancement, we are living in the age of the global village that enables more convenient and brings us closer together. However, this also means that human being is suffering from global environmental crisis including the threat of war, economic crises, racial conflicts, environmental degradation, and environmental crime. This paper represents library-based work to date in Buddhist contemporary and useful perspectives and strategies on environmental protection and prevention in the backdrop of growing consumerism and capitalism influenced by western cultural in post-globalization era. Comparing to other countries, Thailand faces various environmental problems and some of them could become to environmental crime such as illegal wildlife trade; smuggling ozone-depleting substances; illicit trade in hazardous waste and pollution; illegal mining; illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing; illegal logging and associated trade in stolen timber. Since Thailand is one of largely Buddhist practical countries, measures to conserve the environment can draw on the principles and precepts of Lord Buddha’s teachings, known as Tripitaka. In Lord Buddha’s lifetime, environmental problems were not salient, but surprisingly, Lord Buddha recognised such problems because they are related to natural law. Accordingly, he established disciplinary rules for monks to live as models of not destroying the environment. The five precepts of Buddhism are the examples of the main principals in Buddhism which is regulations regarding the relation with environmental crime protection and humanity.

The purpose of the research is to identify the types of environmental pollution crimes in Iran. This research is a theoretical type that has been done by survey and analysis and has been done in 3 stages. Initially, an initial list of environmental crimes was used by a semi-structured interview method. Sampling was determined by the targeted method and the sample size was 169 people. All interviews were implemented and coded as text. In the next step, using expert opinions and the method of pairwise comparison, environmental crimes of weighting and their importance coefficient were determined. Then, by inquiring from the legal offices of the relevant organizations, the statistics of violations and environmental crimes by the provinces of the country between the years 2017 to 2019 were obtained. The results showed that the main crimes of environmental pollution in Iran can be divided into 8 main categories. Also, 23 criteria were determined for them. Among the eight crimes of environmental pollution, the highest weight belonged to air pollution (0.876) and then water pollution (0.797). Also; the lowest weight was allocated to wave pollution (0.114). A comparative comparison between environmental pollution crimes showed that between 2017 and 2019, statistically, the highest rate of crime was related to waste pollution and then water pollution. Mazandaran province with 6674 cases of environmental crimes in the top provinces of the country and Khorasan Razavi province was introduced as the last province with 223 cases of environmental crimes.

This article describes how one might study environmental crime in non-democratic regimes. Environmental crimes and harms are committed in both democratic and non-democratic regimes, yet in non-democratic regimes, researchers face unique methodological challenges (e.g., threats to physical integrity). Despite these challenges, studying environmental crime in autocratic regimes is a worthwhile endeavor for both students and scholars of autocratic regimes and environmental crime, as well as the overlap thereof. First, such inquiries illuminate how environmental crime provides autocratic leaders with the resources to cement their power. Second, studying environmental crime in autocratic settings encourages a reconceptualization of the meaning of environmental crime. Namely, environmental crime in autocratic regimes does not start at the law implementation stage, but already at the law-making stage. In this article, we summarize and reflect on our work on environmental crime in the Armenian mining industry (Stefes and Theodoratos in Fighting environmental crime in Europe and Abroad: the role of the EU and its member states, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, 2016). Much of this work relied on interviews conducted with journalists, NGO representatives, and foreign diplomats familiar with the situation in the Armenian mining sector. As we present our findings, we highlight the challenges that researchers face when tracing the institutions, actors, and their networks that facilitate environmental crime. We conclude with some practical advice for researchers who want to study environmental crime under such autocratic conditions.

Green criminology provides for inter-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary engagement with environmental crimes and wider environmental harms. Green criminology applies a broad ‘‘green’’ perspective to environmental harms, ecological justice, and the study of environmental laws and criminality, which includes crimes affecting the environment and non-human nature. Within the ecological justice and species justice perspectives of green criminology there is a contention that justice systems need to do more than just consider anthropocentric notions of criminal justice, they should also consider how justice systems can provide protection and redress for the environment and other species. Green criminological scholarship has, thus, paid direct attention to theoretical questions of whether and how justice systems deal with crimes against animals and the environment; it has begun to conceptualize policy perspectives that can provide contemporary ecological justice alongside mainstream criminal justice. Moving beyond mainstream criminology’s focus on individual offenders, green criminology also explores state failure in environmental protection and corporate offending and environmentally harmful business practices. A central discussion within green criminology is that of whether environmental harm rather than environmental crime should be its focus, and whether green ‘‘crimes’’ should be seen as the focus of mainstream criminal justice and dealt with by core criminal justice agencies such as the police, or whether they should be considered as being beyond the mainstream. This article provides an introductory overview that complements a multi- and inter-disciplinary article collection dedicated to green criminological thinking and research.

Within the last two decades, “green criminology” has emerged as a distinctive area of study, drawing together criminologists with a wide range of specific research interests and representing varying theoretical orientations. “Green criminology” spans the micro to the macro, from work on individual-level environmental crimes to business/corporate violations to state transgressions, and includes research conducted from both mainstream and critical theoretical perspectives, as well as arising out of interdisciplinary projects. With few exceptions, there has been little work attempting to explicitly or implicitly integrate cultural criminology with green criminology and vice versa. This article promulgates a green-cultural criminology—an approach that seeks to incorporate a concern with the cultural significance of the environment, environmental crime, and environmental harm into the green criminological enterprise. It begins by demonstrating how cultural criminology is, at some levels, already doing green criminology. It then attempts to map a green criminology onto several key dimensions of cultural criminology: (a) the contestation of space, transgression, and resistance; (b) the way(s) in which crime is constructed and represented by the media; and (c) patterns of constructed consumerism. This article concludes by showing how a green-criminology-cultural-criminology cross-fertilization would be mutually beneficial.

Green criminology has been advancing a focus on environmental crimes and harms. Extending this inquiry into avoidable and avertable environmental harms is a key function of both green criminology and zemiology. However, while the former seeks to expand regulatory frameworks, the latter contains within it the potential for a more holistic reimagining of the social world. Based on a methodology that combines qualitative methods (key informant interviews), a zemiological analysis, and the political ecology of Felix Guattari, we present a reconceptualization of harm inflicted by mineral extractivism in Peru’s Cerro de Pasco. The analysis utilizes the concept of transversal harm, which allows us to move beyond the criminal and civil damage of corporate crime and negligence, and to capture the collective and continuous impact of mineral extractivism. A discussion of transversal harm as a potential new avenue for expanding the conceptual boundaries of studying environmental harm concludes the article.

Over the past ten years, the study of environmental harm and 'crimes against nature' has become an increasingly popular area of research amongst criminologists. This book represents the first international, comprehensive and introductory text for green criminology, offering a concise exposition of theory and concepts and providing extensive geographical coverage, diversity and depth to the many issues pertaining to environmental harm and crime.Divided into three sections, the book draws on a range of international case studies and examples, and looks at the conceptual and methodological foundations of green criminology, before examining in detail areas of environmental crime and harm, and how they are addressed, including: climate change and social conflict; abuse and harm to animals; threats to bio-diversity; pollution and toxic waste; environmental victims; environmental regulation, law enforcement and courts; environmental forensic studies; environmental crime prevention. Green Criminology is packed with pedagogical features, including dialogue boxes, case examples, discussion questions and lists of further reading and is perfect for students around the world engaged with green criminology and crime against the environment.

This chapter describes the intersection of visual and green criminology. It offers a concise outline of the cross-fertilization of these tendencies—green-visual criminology—as well as examples of the theoretical and methodological trends developing from that intersection, and of the ways in which environmental crime and harm have been taken on visually. The chapter discusses the ways in which problems including climate change, wildfires, and species loss have been—and might be—taken up by a visual criminology. This chapter also notes and describes the ways in which the material environment has played a significant role in the construction of distinct and powerful forms of visuality.

The purpose of this chapter work is deepening the knowledge about environmental crime. Organized crime is a phenomena which is a part of modern society living and represents a treat for the real society developments. Environmental crime with some separate forms and shapes presents the environment crime, which is presented not only on the regional but although on the international, global level. One of the most profitable businesses in the sphere of crime is the illegal lodgment of waste which is put on the top of the scale of crime activities in present time. The goals that have to be achieved are more efficient fight against environment crime, and they belong in the part of sphere of criminology. Fighting against this type of crime is a part of the methodology of its detecting, substantiation and clarifying the environmental crimes and the police methods is enriched with special investigation measures and activities undertaken by the police authorized security bodies.The chapter identifies the measures and the activities that authorized bodies take over to fight against this type of crime. It also takes into consideration the measures that are taken at a national level, and the measures taken by Interpol. During this work failures in police and other bodies operating have been addressed. The most important are the notes considering inadequately applying of measures that can result in not convincing the perpetrator. In the conclusion also the way of realization of the law estimated solutions is proposed, with an aim of protection of the environment. In this chapter a methodology is recommended about the fight against environmental crime, and because of that it is of important value for operational workers.KeywordsOrganize CrimeMoney LaunderingOrganise CrimeEnvironmental CrimeIllegal TradeThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.