Page 70 - AEI Insights 2020 - Vol. 6, Issue 1

AEI Insights, Vol 6, Issue 1, 2020

Another neuralgic point of combating these types of crimes is the under-resourced incentives
in contrast with the criminal environment, which is associated with the availability of
significant financial resources. Controlling public resources and influencing public
administration strengthening the position of organized crime networks.

To leave the often-used common understanding behind and come to an agreement on the
internationally accepted definition. That necessitates an extensive work on the instrument, upon
which the UN Member States are able to enhance their respective law enforcement cooperation
and close the gap in understanding and acting. Without a definition, the fight against these
types of crimes will always be impeded by the allocation of financial resources and political
prioritization accompanied with lack of enforcement.

The following pages provide an overview of the main characteristics of environmental crime,
its interlinkages to organized crime and the currently existing supporting legislation on
international and European level with the objective of identifying barriers, remaining gaps and
potential solutions that can pave the way forward. In addition, it analyses international
legislations, agreements and legally binding documents, which have already touched upon
some parts of the potential definition on environmental crime, or created a definition, that can
be a base for starting negations on.

Building on the identified successful approaches, author’s writing is aiming to facilitate efforts
toward a commonly agreed, internationally recognized definition on environmental crime.
Besides, it assesses and maps existing legislations and supports actors in their compliance
efforts towards the future comprehensive universal instrument/s.

Main characteristics of environmental crime
From a start, let us feature the main characteristics of wrongdoings related to the environment.
They are:

• transnational – no geographical constrains
• wide array of crimes are associated with it, such as trafficking and overfishing
(overhunting) of protected species; illegal logging; dumping of hazardous waste;
smuggle wild life, weapons, drugs and people across continents
• interlinked with other criminal offences such as passport fraud, identity theft,
corruption, money laundering and murder
• it jeopardizes wildlife, population, ecosystems, sustainable livelihoods, revenue
streams to the governments it endangers the preservation of the environment and has
major implications on the health and safety of the citizens
• it is aggravated through their additional cost and impact to future generations
• a number of circumstances strengthen the link between corruption and environmental
crimes, such as tax burden, excessive regulation of legal markets, bureaucracy and high
public spending
• organized crime networks are key actors in environmental crimes, because of their
control of public resources and their influence on the public administration (locally,
regionally and nationally)
• considerable degree of moral acceptance coupled with a low sense of statehood -
vulnerabilities in control of authorization system
• criminal systems are complex and essential condition of a normal functioning
democracy

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