Environmental criminal liability: The long and winding road towards an effective environmental criminal law system in the EU

This chapter reviews the emergence of environmental criminal law in Europe as well as the many changes that have taken place over the past decades. It sketches how environmental criminal law started as a supplement to administrative law, but later received a more autonomous position. Evolutions in case law have led to the possibility for the EU to force Member States to impose criminal sanctions on the violation of legislation implementing European directives. One such directive is the Environmental Crime Directive of 2008 which, however, can only partially contribute to the implementation deficit which criminal law was meant to resolve.