European environmental criminal law and enforcement

Environmental criminal law in Europe has gone through a spectacular evolution during the past decades. At the level of Member States, environmental crimes have taken an important place in many legal systems where environmental criminal provisions have been incorporated either in penal code or in a specific environmental statute. In some countries, the environment itself has received more autonomous protection through the criminal law system. Another remarkable revolution is the introduction of the toolbox approach, providing a variety of enforcement responses that can be employed, thus reserving environmental criminal law as the last resort. Meanwhile, the European Union (EU) has acted on environmental criminal law, issuing the 2008 Environmental Crime Directive and the proposed 2021 Directive. However, the Directive does not reflect developments in the Member States. Moreover, the enforcement of environmental law in Europe faces many challenges; the implementation deficit could not be solved by merely forcing Member States to criminalize environmental harm. This leads to a serious danger of window dressing or symbolic legislation whereby environmental violations are criminalized, without any guarantee of effective enforcement. Thus, important challenges remain to assure effective application of the environmental common rights and obligations (acquis) of Member States.