B8.6 Environmental Crime Directive

 

Environmental crime covers acts that breach environmental legislation. This includes illegal:

  • Emission of substances into air.
  • Discharge of substances into water.
  • Deposit of waste on land.
  • Trade in wildlife.

 

Environmental crimes cause significant damage to the environment and can be highly profitable for the criminals that engage in such acts.

In different countries, environmental crime is considered differently in terms of seriousness and therefore the penalties vary significantly. Therefore the European Commission adopted a proposal for a directive aiming to ensure the protection of the environment through criminal law. Directive 2008/98/EC on the protection of the environment through criminal law was adopted in the UK in 2008. All member States had until December 2010 to transpose this into national law.

The Directive includes a list of environmental offences that each Member State must consider an environmental offence. It does not create new illegal acts, as these are already contained in specific legislation. The Directive does impose a requirement that all Member States must punish the illegal activity and the inciting, aiding and abetting of such offence, as a criminal offence.

The Directive also includes a requirement that if a crime is committed for a person’s benefit, they must be held liable for that crime. Only minimum standards are included, each Member State may impose more stringent measures if desired.

Article 3: Offences:

Member States shall ensure that the following conduct constitutes a criminal offence, when unlawful and committed intentionally or with at least serious negligence:

(a) the discharge, emission or introduction of a quantity of materials or ionising radiation into air, soil or water, which causes or is likely to cause death or serious injury to any person or substantial damage to the quality of air, the quality of soil or the quality of water, or to animals or plants;

(b) the collection, transport, recovery or disposal of waste, including the supervision of such operations and the after-care of disposal sites, and including action taken as a dealer or a broker (waste management), which causes or is likely to cause death or serious injury to any person or substantial damage to the quality of air, the quality of soil or the quality of water, or to animals or plants;

(c) the shipment of waste, where this activity falls within the scope of Article 2(35) of Regulation (EC) No 1013/2006 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 14 June 2006 on shipments of waste [6] and is undertaken in a non-negligible quantity, whether executed in a single shipment or in several shipments which appear to be linked;

(d) the operation of a plant in which a dangerous activity is carried out or in which dangerous substances or preparations are stored or used and which, outside the plant, causes or is likely to cause death or serious injury to any person or substantial damage to the quality of air, the quality of soil or the quality of water, or to animals or plants;

(e) the production, processing, handling, use, holding, storage, transport, import, export or disposal of nuclear materials or other hazardous radioactive substances which causes or is likely to cause death or serious injury to any person or substantial damage to the quality of air, the quality of soil or the quality of water, or to animals or plants;

(f) the killing, destruction, possession or taking of specimens of protected wild fauna or flora species, except for cases where the conduct concerns a negligible quantity of such specimens and has a negligible impact on the conservation status of the species;

(g) trading in specimens of protected wild fauna or flora species or parts or derivatives thereof, except for cases where the conduct concerns a negligible quantity of such specimens and has a negligible impact on the conservation status of the species;

(h) any conduct which causes the significant deterioration of a habitat within a protected site;

(i) the production, importation, exportation, placing on the market or use of ozone-depleting substances.

 Source: Directive 2008/98/EC on the protection of the environment through criminal law, available via

http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:32008L0099:EN:NOT

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