Enforcement measures to tackle environmental crime

Current enforcement measures at national and international level are insufficient, given the environmental and financial losses caused by transnational environmental crime. Innovative national and international enforcement initiatives are required and sufficient funding must be available to make them successful.

Gathering and sharing actionable information and targeting enforcement efforts to vulnerabilities in international supply chains is imperative. Innovative enforcement techniques can be used in conjunction with such targeting to promote compliance. It is also imperative to close loopholes that allow laundering of illicit substances and non-compliance by parties.

Enforcement measures for environmental crime

A coordinated strategy to combat international environmental crime must address the supply and demand dynamics that create an illicit market and improve enforcement on the front lines. To increase the effectiveness of global environmental controls, enforcement agents and government officials participate in discussions to share their experiences. The following elements are rarely solved by enforcement agents alone, but often face consequences.

1. Domestic enforcement

National laws must be updated frequently to include precise descriptions of prohibited conduct, impose severe deterrent penalties, and outline who is responsible for enforcing them at each level of the supply chain. Significant resources must be allocated to ensure successful enforcement. Enhanced enforcement can result in an immediate increase in revenues where tax evasion occurs.

Lack of specialist knowledge and training can be most effectively addressed by training programmes that combine the use of specialist prosecutors with work with investigators using a cascade coaching strategy, followed by refresher training. Early communication between frontline officers, specialist enforcement staff and their colleagues overseas is recommended. Contact can be facilitated by regularly updated national and global directories of enforcement experts.

Criminal profiling is essential for targeted enforcement action. Risk analysis involves collecting data on exporters and importers and combining it with actionable intelligence and enforcement action to profile illicit goods, smuggling techniques and potential places of origin.

2. Criminal sanctions

The widespread recognition of criminal sanctions as a deterrent against some of the most serious environmental crimes has played a major role in the allocation of increasing resources by law enforcement agencies to combat environmental crime.

Fines help establish the severity of enforcement authorities and the deterrent impact of laws that address crime. Strict liability processes may be more useful when pursuing criminal charges is difficult, such as when it is difficult to establish criminal intent to break the law or to gather evidence of guilt to the level of “beyond a reasonable doubt.” These punish a company or individual for failing to exercise due care and diligence without regard to negligence or malice.

3. International coordination

It is vital that an MEA monitoring system provides information that is useful to enforcement officials, in addition to the apparent need for countries to fully comply with the regime. More effective collection and communication of national intelligence on environmental crime is necessary to enable coordinated enforcement action between regions. Other simple methods exist, such as Interpol’s “Eco-message” form for reporting or requesting information on environmental crime that requires cross-border cooperation.

For finite resources such as fish, timber and endangered species, where maintaining supplies is crucial, international enforcement efforts should focus on weak links in the supply chain. Penalizing those further down the supply chain will not stop environmental damage. That is why it can be important to provide development aid to countries that are responsible for managing the public good.

It is crucial to understand the cultures and “standard operating procedures” of different national and international organizations, while promoting international cooperation to ensure that the contributions of different agencies complement each other. For example, the WCO does not share information with its member agencies that often directly identifies suspected offenders, but Interpol does.

4. Integration of new technology

Numerous new technologies have the potential to significantly reduce the costs of domestic and international enforcement. Lowering the costs and providing savings in monitoring, compliance and inspection approaches such as Vessel Monitoring Systems and granular satellite monitoring of forestry permits can move the marginal benefit curve of monitoring downward. Despite the immense promise of new technology, technologies will not be developed until explicit policy requirements for their application are identified.

Barcodes and central registers are often used to track the sale of goods on high streets. It should therefore be normal to use them internationally for more valuable goods such as tropical logs. The distorted international picture is partly evidenced by the fact that technological progress now precedes governance rather than being influenced by it. Environmental forensics and new enforcement procedures should be developed in multinational centres of excellence to support this process.

5. Strict compliance

Environmental agreements should contain elements to promote compliance, as non-compliance and inadequate implementation of MEA provisions are probably the main enablers of environmental crime. Since no MEA has given an extraterritorial authority direct sanctioning powers, non-compliance processes remain the exclusive domain of national parties. These actions are almost always subject to a decision taken by the parties to an MEA.

6. Supply and demand management

Enforcement can drive individuals out of an illegal market and discourage entry, but it has little effect on the supply and demand factors that led to the market developing in the first place. For example, it may be too late for a specific species when a smuggler is caught with a tiger skin. Even when deterrent legislation carries the death penalty, illegal activities can persist because regulators and those regulated have vastly different views on risk and timelines.

There is no single, painless solution to international environmental crime. However, a more coordinated strategy for regulating the global market for environmental products would encourage a more dynamic awareness of the evolving web of opportunities and regulations that need to be adapted to reduce the level of environmental non-compliance.

Final thoughts

Environmental crime is a serious offence that poses a significant threat to the well-being of our planet and must be addressed with robust enforcement measures. In conclusion, enforcing environmental laws is crucial to protecting our planet and preventing environmental crime. Governments must use a combination of penalties, fines, imprisonment, seizures, compliance orders, environmental impact assessments, civil litigation and public awareness campaigns to effectively tackle environmental crime.