Abstract
The Council of Europe Convention on the Protection of the Environment through Criminal Law, adopted at the 134th Session of the Committee of Ministers (Luxembourg, 13–14 May 2025), represents a major development in European environmental governance. It establishes a common framework of offences, sanctions and procedural mechanisms aimed at strengthening the prevention and punishment of environmental crime. Its innovative scope lies in its harmonising ambition, which enhances coherence among the legal orders of the Council of Europe, the European Union and the United Nations. By combining interinstitutional coordination, strategic planning, adequate resource allocation, the specialisation of actors and public participation, the Convention elevates criminal enforcement to a central pillar of a systemic environmental policy. Its monitoring mechanism, grounded in cooperation and collective evaluation rather than coercion, embodies the participatory governance philosophy characteristic of the Council of Europe.
Keywords
Introduction
The history of environmental protection through criminal law within the Council of Europe reflects a long process of institutionalising a common legal response to environmental crime. As early as the 1970s, when ecological awareness began to take hold on the international stage following the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm, 1 the Council of Europe emerged as one of the first regional forums to envisage the use of criminal law as a means of safeguarding the environment. 2 This orientation already signalled the recognition that the preservation of natural balances could no longer be confined to the administrative or civil sphere, but required coercive instruments capable of sanctioning the most serious offences against the collective interest.
This early phase of reflection gradually led the Council of Europe to consolidate its action in this field, transforming an initial political intuition into a genuine normative project. More than half a century later, this process culminated in the adoption, on 14 May 2025, of the Convention on the Protection of the Environment through Criminal Law (hereinafter ‘the Convention’), 3 a foundational text that crowns 50 years of normative and diplomatic endeavour. The outcome of lengthy negotiations among member States, the Convention is conceived as a reference instrument for promoting the harmonisation – while respecting legal pluralism – of offences, sanctions, and procedural as well as international cooperation mechanisms relating to environmental crime. This new instrument establishes a comprehensive and operational framework aimed at providing the European area with an environmental criminal law that is coherent, effective and aligned with international standards. It thus marks a decisive stage in the juridification of environmental protection, elevating the environment to the status of a common legal good whose degradation calls for the law's most solemn response. In this continuity, the Convention's normative ambition is both dual and complementary. On the one hand, it seeks to establish a set of common minimum rules to structure a European criminal law space grounded in coherence, ecological solidarity and shared responsibility. On the other hand, it aims to ensure the systemic compatibility of this new framework with the European Union's acquis, thereby preventing conflicts of norms and consolidating the synergy between European regimes of environmental protection.
The Convention exemplifies a delicate balance between openness and institutional rigour, reconciling the universalist vocation of environmental protection with the requirements of internal coherence inherent in the Council of Europe's system. Firstly, the Convention is open for signature exclusively to the member States of the Council of Europe, to non-member States that participated in its drafting, and to the European Union. 4 These same categories of actors may proceed to ratification, acceptance or approval of the Convention, with the corresponding instruments to be deposited with the Secretary General of the Council of Europe. 5 This restricted configuration reflects a cautious approach to universalisation: the initial openness remains limited to those actors directly involved in the Convention's genesis, thereby ensuring a solid institutional appropriation before any extension to other States. This logic of balance between inclusion and control is also evident in the rule governing the Convention's entry into force. The Convention will enter into force on the first day of the month following the expiry of a period of three months from the date on which ten signatories, including at least eight member States of the Council of Europe, have expressed their consent to be bound. 6 The choice of this threshold demonstrates a concern for institutional realism: the aim is to secure a critical mass of States sufficient to guarantee the credibility and functionality of the convention regime, without imposing burdensome conditions likely to delay its implementation. 7 The balance sought by the drafters is thus to promote a swift entry into force while ensuring adequate representation of European States within the first circle of Parties – an essential condition for the legitimacy of the system.
Secondly, the Convention establishes an open yet strictly regulated mechanism of accession, designed for non-member States of the Council of Europe that did not take part in its drafting. 8 This mechanism exemplifies the inherent tension between the universalist ambition of the text and the desire to preserve the coherence of the regional system. Although conceived within the institutional framework of the Council of Europe, the Convention aspires to become an instrument of global reach – one capable of serving as a model for international criminal cooperation in matters of environmental crime. This cautious openness reflects the Council's awareness of the transboundary and systemic nature of environmental harm, which cannot be effectively addressed without broad adherence beyond the European continent. However, this universalist aspiration is accompanied by procedural safeguards intended to prevent any normative dilution or institutional imbalance. First, the accession of a third State is only possible after the Convention has entered into force, 9 thereby ensuring the consolidation of a founding core of Parties before any enlargement. Secondly, such accession may take place only upon the express invitation of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, 10 the body that embodies the political legitimacy of the system. The decision to issue an invitation must be adopted by a two-thirds majority and, in addition, requires the unanimous agreement of the representatives of the Parties sitting on the Committee of Ministers. 11 Finally, this procedure may be initiated only after consultation with the States Parties and the unanimous consent of all. 12 This triple filter – temporal, institutional, and consensual – reflects the Council of Europe's philosophy regarding normative expansion: international openness must not come at the expense of the integrity of the convention regime. In other words, the universalisation of environmental criminal law cannot arise from a mere geographical extension, but from a gradual integration grounded in shared values, institutional trust and the preservation of the legal coherence of the European model.
The present Legislative Note seeks to shed light on the principal innovations introduced by the Convention, situating them within the broader evolution of environmental criminal law at the European and international levels. The analysis adopts a progressive approach. It begins by placing the Convention in its historical and institutional context, showing how it forms part of a long-standing process of normative maturation initiated in the 1970s. It then turns to the instrument's harmonising ambition, which strives to reconcile unity and pluralism in the construction of a European environmental criminal law. The third part examines the integrated governance of environmental enforcement, highlighting the Convention's intent to link prevention, specialisation, and strategic planning. The fourth part explores the material core of environmental criminal law, where the Convention elevates the gravest harms to nature to the level of criminal offences, thereby affirming the expressive value of criminal law. Finally, the last part analyses the cooperative and inclusive monitoring mechanism, an institutional innovation that confers upon the treaty's implementation a participatory and evolving character.
Background
Reflection on the use of criminal law for environmental protection purposes was officially initiated within the Council of Europe in 1970, when the European Committee on Crime Problems (CDPC), the governing body responsible for coordinating criminal policies within the Organisation, placed the issue on its work programme. 13 In the wake of this initiative, the institutions of the Council of Europe – notably the Consultative Assembly and the Conference of European Ministers of Justice – launched pioneering discussions on the criminal liability of legal persons, the dissociation of environmental enforcement from the notion of mens rea, and the harmonisation of sanctions applicable to ecological offences. 14 This institutional momentum materialised a few years later in the adoption of a major resolution by the CDPC, which laid the foundations for an autonomous body of environmental criminal law conceived both as an instrument of deterrence and as a tool of public policy. 15 In the continuity of this development, the following decade saw the establishment, in 1991, of a Group of experts tasked with designing a common legal framework for the criminalisation of serious environmental harm. After several years of work, the draft treaty was approved by the CDPC in 1996, 16 and subsequently adopted by the Committee of Ministers on 4 November 1998 under the title ‘Convention on the Protection of the Environment through Criminal Law’ 17 (hereinafter ‘the 1998 Convention’).
The 1998 Convention represented the culmination of a quarter-century of legal and political maturation. It was the first binding international instrument requiring States to criminalise certain behaviours deemed particularly harmful to the environment. In doing so, it gave legal expression to a fundamental idea: that serious environmental harm constitutes not merely an administrative breach, but an offence against international public order. Its purpose was to strengthen environmental protection across Europe by using criminal law as a deterrent to conduct capable of causing irreversible damage, while harmonising national legislation to ensure coherent and effective responses. The 1998 Convention required the Contracting States to adopt specific legislative provisions – or adapt their existing ones – to criminalise intentional or negligent acts that caused or were likely to cause lasting harm to the quality of air, soil or water, to fauna and flora, or to human health. 18 This innovative text affirmed the primacy of an integrated approach, recognising that the protection of nature and the preservation of human life are inseparable. The criminalisation of such conduct reflected a logic of ecological solidarity, elevating the protection of the environment to the status of a higher penal interest.
However, the ambition of the 1998 Convention soon collided with political and institutional realities: having failed to secure the three ratifications required for its entry into force, the text never became legally binding. This outcome reflects the enduring tension between the penal sovereignty of States and the regional aspiration for harmonisation in a field where national sensitivities remain particularly strong. It also reveals the reluctance of some governments to accept what they perceived as an excessive intrusion into the definition of their domestic criminal policies and the balance between criminal and administrative law. Yet, rather than diminishing its intellectual and symbolic significance, this lack of entry into force ultimately underscored the Convention's foundational value. It served as a normative laboratory – a conceptual anchor from which the Council of Europe could, decades later, reconceptualise its framework in a more pragmatic and inclusive manner.
Aware of the structural shortcomings of the 1998 Convention, the Council of Europe launched, from 2020 onwards, an ambitious process of renewal aimed at providing the European legal space with a criminal framework that was more coherent, comprehensive and better aligned with existing international standards. This institutional resurgence unfolded against a backdrop of profound ecological transformation: the proliferation of illegal waste trafficking, transboundary pollution, the unlawful exploitation of natural resources, and the rise of organised environmental crime demanding a truly transnational response. These phenomena, involving private, public and sometimes para-state actors, expose the growing porosity between economic, criminal and ecological spheres. Consequently, environmental protection can no longer be regarded as a fragmented administrative competence but must instead be understood as a collective security imperative, thereby justifying the mobilisation of criminal law within a framework of global environmental governance. It was in this context that, in November 2020, the CDPC established a Working Group on Environment and Criminal Law. The Group was tasked with assessing the feasibility of a new international instrument capable of replacing the 1998 Convention. 19 The goal was not merely to fill the legal vacuum left by the earlier instrument, but to rethink the Council of Europe's entire environmental criminal policy in light of contemporary developments in international law.
Following the feasibility report prepared by the Working Group on Environment and Criminal Law, the CDPC concluded in June 2022 that the elaboration of a new convention was both necessary and timely. 20 This conclusion, far from being a mere technical assessment, reflected a broader institutional awareness: the existing legal framework – fragmented, outdated and ill-suited to the scale of contemporary ecological challenges – no longer ensured the effective protection of the environment. A more ambitious instrument was required, one that would integrate the advances of international environmental law and comparative criminal law while drawing lessons from the failure of the 1998 Convention. In response to this assessment, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe adopted, on 23 November 2022, the mandate of the Committee of Experts on the Protection of the Environment through Criminal Law (PC-ENV), tasked with drafting a new Council of Europe Convention on the Protection of the Environment through Criminal Law. 21 This decision marked a crucial turning point: more than two decades after the first attempt, it revived the construction of a genuine European criminal law of the environment. Between April 2023 and October 2024, the PC-ENV conducted an intensive negotiation process structured around five rounds of meetings held in Strasbourg. The committee functioned as a genuine laboratory of interdisciplinary cooperation, bringing together jurists, criminologists, diplomats, technical experts and representatives of international and non-governmental organisations. Its objective was to reconcile legal precision with the political flexibility necessary to secure the adherence of a broad range of States. The discussions addressed not only the definition of offences but also the criminal liability of legal persons, mechanisms for international cooperation, principles of extraterritorial jurisdiction and the compatibility of the new instrument with existing European and universal norms. Through this dialogue, the PC-ENV sought to establish a balance between normative harmonisation and respect for the legal pluralism of member States, in keeping with the institutional philosophy of the Council of Europe.
The draft Convention, the outcome of extensive consultations, was finalised by the CDPC, and approved in November 2024. 22 This stage represented the culmination of the codification process initiated in 2020, conferring upon the text both internal coherence and institutional legitimacy. Unlike the 1998 approach, which had suffered from a lack of broad consultation, the 2024 draft was built upon an inclusive methodology that ensured every member, observer and partner State could contribute to the formulation of norms and the identification of priorities. This enlarged consensus aimed to overcome the political and institutional resistances that had previously paralysed the ratification of the 1998 Convention. The process concluded with the formal adoption of the Convention during the 134th Session of the Committee of Ministers held in Luxembourg on 13–14 May 2025. Registered under reference CM(2025)52-final, this instrument repeals and replaces the 1998 Convention, thereby enshrining the comprehensive renewal of the European framework for environmental criminal law. Its adoption marks both the completion of a long normative cycle and the opening of a new phase in the juridification of environmental protection, now grounded in the principles of solidarity, prevention and responsibility.
The adoption of the Convention represents far more than the completion of an institutional cycle: it marks the culmination of more than half a century of sustained effort, from the initial reflections of the CDPC in the 1970s to the establishment of an operational normative framework grounded in the recognition of the environment as a legal good of common interest. In this sense, the Convention signifies the transition from a sectoral logic – long focused on pollution control and the preservation of natural resources – to a systemic and integrated approach to environmental criminality. It enshrines the notion that the prosecution of environmental offences is no longer a mere administrative matter but a collective duty of environmental justice. Through this evolution, the Council of Europe positions itself as a key actor in the construction of a European environmental criminal law order that is both complementary to the European Union legal system and open to universal cooperation under the auspices of the United Nations.
The convention
A harmonising ambition
The Convention embodies both a legal and political ambition of harmonisation, seeking to reduce normative disparities among the member States of the Council of Europe while strengthening the links with general international law. This articulation finds a particularly clear expression in Article 49, entitled ‘Relationship with other sources of international law’. The provision establishes a regime of coexistence rather than hierarchy between the Convention and other international instruments – whether multilateral or bilateral – governing the same subject matter. The purpose is not to impose an exclusive framework but to ensure complementarity and coherence among the various applicable legal regimes. Paragraph 1 expressly provides that ‘This Convention shall not affect rights and obligations arising from customary international law and other international conventions’. It reflects an acute awareness of the interdependence of international regimes relevant to environmental protection, particularly in the maritime sphere, where transboundary pollution may engage several concurrent legal orders. Thus, when a vessel releases polluting substances in the territorial waters of a State Party but sails under the flag of a non-Party State, the Convention does not exclude the application of general international law rules that hold the flag State responsible for the conduct of its ships. 23 In this way, the Convention complements rather than replaces existing international law: it ensures that the broader legal framework governing environmental protection continues to apply consistently within the field of environmental criminal law. Paragraph 2 reaffirms this openness by encouraging the conclusion of bilateral or multilateral agreements relating to matters covered by the Convention, provided that such agreements do not contradict its objectives. This formulation reflects a cooperative understanding of normative pluralism: States remain free to adopt more protective regimes, so long as these do not undermine the common baseline established by the Council of Europe. Finally, paragraph 3 of Article 49 provides that ‘Nothing in this Convention shall affect the rights, obligations and responsibilities of States and individuals under international law’. This safeguard clause encapsulates the integrative vocation of the Convention: it does not seek to create a parallel legal order, but rather to establish a framework for coordination in the service of a European environmental governance system harmonised with universal international law.
Article 51 brings the overall architecture of the Convention to completion by enshrining the principle of favour legis in environmental protection. Paragraph 1 specifies that the provisions of the Convention apply without prejudice to domestic or international norms providing a broader scope of protection against environmental crime. This mechanism of upward compatibility reflects the idea that the Convention establishes a minimum threshold of protection, while leaving States free to adopt more ambitious measures. In other words, it sets a floor rather than a ceiling: Parties retain the discretion to strengthen their systems of prevention or repression insofar as such measures enhance the protection of the environment and the rights of victims of ecological harm. This clause of favour thus embodies the principle of progressivity – a cornerstone of international environmental law – according to which environmental protection must continually evolve towards greater effectiveness. The second paragraph transposes this logic into the institutional context of the European Union. It provides that EU member States shall apply, in their mutual relations, the relevant rules of EU law on environmental criminality, while ensuring the full implementation of the Convention in their relations with non-member States. This coordination clause reflects a pragmatic conception of European legal pluralism: rather than establishing a hierarchy between normative systems, it seeks to ensure their functional complementarity. The Convention does not replace EU secondary law but operates in concert with it, consolidating shared principles of responsibility, prevention and deterrence. This complementarity is further illustrated by its coherence with Directive (EU) 2024/1203 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 April 2024 on the protection of the environment through criminal law (hereinafter ‘Directive (EU) 2024/1203’). 24 Such alignment is not coincidental; it reflects a deliberate effort to ensure coordination between two complementary European legal regimes 25 – on the one hand, the Council of Europe, guardian of legal pluralism, democracy and human rights, and on the other, the European Union, endowed with a limited yet effective competence in the field of environmental criminal harmonisation. This alignment stems from a crucial institutional fact: the 27 member States of the European Union are also members of the Council of Europe, thereby forming an integrated legal area in which European obligations and convention commitments coexist. Such overlap inevitably entails the risk of tensions – including divergences in interpretation, overlapping competences and occasional gaps in coordination – but the Convention anticipates these risks by aligning the definitions of offences, categories of sanctions and procedural guarantees with those provided by Directive (EU) 2024/1203. By ensuring this normative consistency, the Convention achieves a dual function: it operates as a framework of convergence for EU member States and as a platform of accession for third States. In doing so, it transcends its regional foundation to establish a coherent European ecological order, capable of serving as a reference point for the future evolution of international environmental law.
The harmonising ambition of the Convention extends well beyond the European sphere. It is firmly embedded within a global normative architecture, integrating, from its Preamble, a wide range of international instruments adopted under the auspices of the United Nations and other multilateral forums. 26 This approach reflects a clear determination to transcend regional boundaries by situating the criminal protection of the environment within a framework of global governance, where ecological responsibility is recognised as an essential component of peace, justice and sustainable development. Accordingly, the Convention explicitly references a series of universally recognised treaties and declarations, including the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (1992), the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal (1989), the Convention on Biological Diversity (1992), the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (1982), and the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (2000), as well as the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development (1992), the Glasgow Climate Pact (2021), and the Paris Agreement (2015) adopted at COP 21. 27 By assembling these references, the Convention goes far beyond a symbolic gesture of reaffirmation. It constructs an integrated normative network in which European criminal law on environmental protection is interwoven with international legal frameworks, thereby ensuring a coherent articulation between environmental, maritime, economic and criminal regimes.
The objective pursued by this approach is twofold. On the one hand, it seeks to prevent conflicts of norms that could undermine the effective implementation of environmental obligations, particularly where several legal regimes – such as the law of the sea, international trade law and environmental law – apply concurrently to the same conduct. By establishing bridges between these regimes, the Convention promotes complementarity rather than their competition. On the other hand, it aims to enhance the coherence of international law by linking the technical instruments for environmental protection – which often lack binding sanctions – with the coercive mechanisms of criminal law. Through this interconnection, the Council of Europe contributes to the emergence of a framework in which environmental commitments are no longer merely declaratory but acquire genuine legal enforceability. In doing so, it advances the development of an international criminal law of the environment – still embryonic, but rapidly expanding. This global environmental criminal law seeks to transcend the traditional dichotomy between national sovereignty and international cooperation by elevating the protection of nature to the status of a common interest of humankind. As a result, the Convention extends beyond European harmonisation: it stands as a bridge between the regional and the universal legal orders.
Towards an integrated governance of environmental enforcement
Articles 5 to 11 of the Convention embody its overarching normative philosophy: the fight against environmental crime can only be effective if it is grounded in integrated governance that combines interinstitutional coordination, strategic planning, adequate resource allocation, specialisation of actors and citizen participation. These provisions establish a systemic conception of environmental criminal law, in which prevention and repression are no longer seen as opposing logics but as complementary dimensions of a continuum of public action. Article 5 enshrines the principle of ‘comprehensive and co-ordinated policies’ for the prevention and suppression of environmental crime. 28 Parties are required to adopt national strategies mobilising all relevant actors –judicial authorities, environmental administrations, law enforcement agencies, local institutions, civil society, and, where appropriate, the private sector. 29 The Convention emphasises the need for interinstitutional cooperation on two levels: strategic and operational. 30 This dual articulation aims, on the one hand, to foster a shared understanding among judicial and administrative authorities and, on the other, to facilitate the exchange of information, the setting of common priorities and the dissemination of best practices. 31 By explicitly linking criminal prevention to institutional coordination, the Convention signals a major shift: the repression of environmental crime is no longer conceived as an isolated process, but as the outcome of a collective intelligence underpinning the environmental rule of law. This model also presupposes the creation of official bodies responsible for coordinating, implementing, monitoring and assessing public policies relating to environmental criminality. 32 Article 5(3) invites the Parties to designate or establish such structures in accordance with their constitutional traditions. Their role is to ensure coherence in public action, prevent duplication of efforts and guarantee regular evaluation of the policies implemented. This requirement reflects the Council of Europe's determination to move from a reactive approach, focused on punishment, to a structural one based on planning and accountability. It enshrines the idea that combating environmental crime must be institutionalised as a full-fledged public policy – one endowed with clear governance structures, adequate resources and measurable objectives.
In this perspective, Article 6 of the Convention requires the Parties to establish a ‘national strategy’ for the prevention and suppression of environmental offences. This programmatic document must define priorities, missions, resources and evaluation mechanisms while incorporating the support of relevant international networks. 33 Such a requirement for national planning strengthens coherence between local, national and regional policies. It also promotes transparency and predictability in public action, which are indispensable conditions for the credibility of criminal justice systems. By providing for the specialisation of professionals and the periodic assessment of outcomes, the Convention transforms environmental criminal policy into an instrument of governance rather than a mere tool of control. 34 The effectiveness of this framework, however, depends on the availability of adequate resources. Aware of the economic disparities among member States, the Convention adopts a pragmatic approach. Article 7 calls upon the Parties to allocate human and financial means that are ‘adequate’, meaning proportionate to the objectives pursued. By formulating an obligation of conduct rather than an obligation of result, this provision preserves national budgetary sovereignty while affirming the necessity of capacity. It reflects a realistic conception of environmental justice: without sufficient resources, criminalisation remains a symbolic exercise. The adequacy of resources thus becomes a criterion of normative effectiveness and an essential component of the Convention's implementation.
Article 8 complements this framework by establishing multidisciplinary training as a true precondition for the existence of environmental criminal justice. Because the offences covered by the Convention are technical, diffuse and frequently transboundary, expertise can no longer be confined to a single professional body; it must be shared, interconnected and continuously tested. 35 The text therefore places knowledge – legal, scientific and operational – at the very core of the enforcement chain, not as a mere adjunct to implementation but as an infrastructure of effectiveness, without which the norm remains inert. In this spirit, the obligation to provide ‘regular’ and ‘appropriate’ training for all professionals involved (investigators, administrative authorities, prosecutors and judges) 36 extends beyond the acquisition of technical tools. It seeks to cultivate a common culture of environmental justice, built upon interdisciplinary competence. This shared culture rests on the mastery of scientific evidence (sampling protocols, traceability and analytical validation), an understanding of ecological cycles and illicit economic chains, awareness of health and ecosystemic impacts and the integration of procedural safeguards such as expert cross-examination, defence rights and the proportionality of precautionary measures. Article 8, paragraph 2, marks a decisive evolution by requiring States to include in their training programmes a component on coordinated inter-institutional cooperation, ensuring that cases of environmental crime are handled comprehensively and appropriately. 37 By training administrative authorities, investigative services, customs, prosecutors and judges together, the Convention promotes the harmonisation of severity thresholds, clarifies prosecutorial priorities and stabilises shared routines such as standard operational procedures, alert systems and common reporting formats. The substance of this provision reflects the Convention's broader objective: to adopt a holistic approach to the prevention and suppression of all offences within its scope of application.
In line with this logic, Article 9 introduces a decisive innovation: the obligation to collect data and promote research. States are required to ‘collect relevant statistical data at regular intervals on cases concerning offences’ and to ‘promote research in the field of environmental crime, in order to study its root causes and effects, incidences and conviction rates, as well as the efficacy of measures taken’. 38 The Explanatory Report helpfully clarifies the concrete scope of this provision by distinguishing between two dimensions of knowledge: statistical data and scientific research. The former may include ‘administrative data collected from statistics compiled by law enforcement agencies and NGOs, as well as judicial data recorded by judicial authorities, including public prosecutors and courts’. 39 The latter – ‘research’ – refers to ‘descriptive or experimental work, undertaken under regulated conditions to obtain scientific findings’. 40 The requirement set out in Article 9 of the Convention thus effects a twofold transformation. First, it replaces ad hoc reaction with governance informed by regular indicators on the prevalence, trajectories and typologies of environmental crime. Second, it organises the circulation of knowledge: States must transmit the information gathered to the Committee of the Parties (the body responsible for monitoring implementation) and make it accessible to the public, 41 thereby creating a space for accountability and comparison conducive to the harmonisation of practices. This coupling of transparency and evaluation confers upon administrative and judicial statistics – such as prosecution and conviction rates, types of offences and characteristics of offenders – a prescriptive function: to guide priorities, allocate resources and identify blind spots within the enforcement chain.
Finally, Articles 10 and 11 extend the prevention of environmental crime beyond the confines of state institutions, thereby establishing a polycentric model of environmental criminal governance in which the protection of nature becomes a shared enterprise involving the State, local authorities, economic actors, universities, NGOs and the general public. 42 This approach is based on the idea that the effectiveness of rules depends on their understanding and appropriation by society. From this perspective, awareness-raising ceases to be peripheral; it becomes structural, for environmental criminal law achieves its full effect only insofar as prohibitions and duties are internalised by all actors. 43 Article 10 provides a clear normative anchor in this respect: preventing environmental crime by any natural or legal person, where appropriate in cooperation with civil society, entails integrating prevention at the very core of organisational structures – through compliance programmes, risk mapping, internal controls and due-diligence processes within supply chains. Article 11 complements this framework by mobilising the tools of risk communication and behavioural sciences. It requires States to ensure that the public at large understands both the importance of environmental protection and the manifestations of environmental criminality. 44 This obligation entails promoting or organising information and awareness campaigns on the prevention and suppression of such offences. In doing so, the Convention channels prevention through collective consciousness. It moves beyond a purely punitive logic to establish a genuine ecological rule of law, grounded in coordination, specialisation, knowledge and participation.
The material core of environmental criminal law
The substantive foundations of environmental criminalisation
Chapter IV of the Convention forms the substantive nucleus of its normative framework. It criminalises the gravest forms of harm to the environment and sets out the relevant criteria. This choice marks a major evolution: the environment is no longer treated as a mere object of administrative regulation but as an autonomous legal interest whose violation calls for the most solemn response of the law – criminal sanction. In this sense, the Convention embodies the transition from a preventive to a repressive model, where criminal responsibility becomes the primary instrument of environmental protection. This European codification seeks to unify a field that has long been fragmented within domestic legal systems. By establishing a harmonised typology of environmental offences, the Convention aims to create a common foundation of liability capable of bridging national disparities and promoting normative coherence across the continent. The harmonisation pursued here is not only formal but also functional: it is designed to enable transnational cooperation in addressing phenomena that are inherently cross-border in nature, such as air pollution, waste trafficking or the unlawful exploitation of natural resources. By requiring States to transpose a shared corpus of offences, 45 the Convention lays the groundwork for a system of shared justiciability and effective judicial cooperation, thereby contributing to the consolidation of a European environmental criminal space.
The elaboration of substantive criminal law within the Convention was the outcome of an extensive process undertaken by the drafting committee, supported by the CDPC. The committee conducted a comparative analysis of national and regional legislations on environmental crime while incorporating standards derived from other international instruments, notably the relevant United Nations conventions and Directive (EU) 2024/1203. 46 This comparative and cumulative approach reflects a clear intent: to strengthen the coherence of the international system for the protection of the environment through criminal law by ensuring complementarity between national, regional and global frameworks. In this perspective, the drafting committee deliberately chose to focus on the most serious and recurrent offences – those whose commission poses a tangible risk of destruction or long-term degradation of ecosystems. 47 This focus on gravity directs the criminal response towards the conduct most harmful to the biosphere and ensures the proportionality of incrimination. Through this deliberate selectivity, Chapter IV of the Convention fully embodies the expressive function of criminal law: by elevating certain environmental harms to the level of crimes, it symbolically affirms the value of the environment as a collective good essential to humankind and transforms it into a legal interest of superior rank. In this sense, Chapter IV represents the hard core of the Convention and must be read in light of its fundamental purpose. 48 It expresses the political will to elevate the protection of the environment to a legally guaranteed value, linking the principle of criminal legality with ecological solidarity and inter-State cooperation.
The Convention adopts a functional structure in which each thematic section – covering water, soil, air, fauna, flora, waste and hazardous substances – enumerates the acts to be criminalised. This design ensures both clarity and adaptability, allowing States to progressively incorporate the categories of offences most relevant to their national contexts. It specifies that such offences must, as a rule, be intentional, while leaving States the discretion to extend criminalisation to conduct committed through negligence. 49 This flexibility reflects the underlying philosophy of the Council of Europe: to establish a common minimum standard without constraining the dynamic expansion of domestic criminal protection. The margin of appreciation thus granted to States strikes a careful balance between harmonisation and legislative sovereignty. While the Convention sets out a shared framework for criminalisation, it does not seek to impose a uniform penal policy across national systems. In this sense, it enshrines an open form of harmonisation, enabling each legal order to calibrate the degree of severity and scope of criminal responsibility according to its own institutional and normative specificities.
The recurring formula ‘when such conduct 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’ 50 constitutes the interpretative cornerstone of Chapter IV of the Convention. By articulating this generic clause, the Convention seeks to delineate the type and magnitude of harm required to qualify conduct as an environmental offence. In doing so, it introduces a fundamental distinction between two thresholds of liability: actual harm and potential harm. This dual gradation of gravity – between realised and foreseeable damage – marks a major normative shift. Criminal liability now extends to ecological endangerment, incorporating risk as an autonomous category of culpability. However, the Convention remains intentionally silent on the precise meaning of key expressions such as ‘substantial damage’ and ‘likely to cause death or serious injury’. Their interpretation is clarified by the Explanatory Report, which provides complementary guidance and assessment criteria. To determine whether a degradation is substantial, the Report invites States to consider, case by case, the usual condition of the affected environment, the duration, extent and reversibility of the damage. 51 These indicators establish a dynamic and contextual approach to environmental assessment rather than an abstract or formalistic one. Similarly, the notion of probability of harm (‘likely to cause’) is elucidated through material indicators such as the hazardous nature of the activity, the exceeding of regulatory thresholds or the inherent toxicity of the substances involved. 52 By combining these criteria, the Convention constructs a dual threshold of criminal responsibility: a causality threshold, linking the act to an actual or potential degradation, and a gravity threshold, determined by the intensity, duration and reversibility of the harm. This framework reconciles two often competing imperatives: the legal certainty of individuals and the preventive protection of the environment. Rather than confining criminal law to the punishment of proven damage, the Convention elevates the foreseeability of serious environmental risk to the level of an anticipatory ground of liability. This normative shift – from realised harm to potential harm – embodies the operationalisation of the precautionary principle within the criminal sphere. Environmental criminal law thus ceases to function merely as an ex post mechanism of reparation; it becomes an instrument of preventive governance, capable of neutralising high-risk conduct before ecological catastrophe occurs. This movement – from harm to risk – reflects a profound transformation of criminal law itself: culpability is no longer defined solely by its consequences, but also by its potential to destabilise essential ecological equilibria.
The Convention stands out for its systemic ambition: it does not merely criminalise unlawful conduct but also establishes the procedural and institutional conditions necessary to ensure the effectiveness of enforcement. In doing so, it formalises the legal interdependence between environmental protection and criminal law, integrating principles of efficiency, prevention and democratic participation. Article 38 offers a particularly illustrative example of this approach. By stipulating that the initiation of investigations or prosecutions shall not depend on the existence or continuation of a complaint, 53 the Convention ensures that the activation of public action remains independent of the victim's will. This procedural autonomy is designed to neutralise the risks of intimidation or pressure, which are frequent in environmental cases involving powerful economic actors. It affirms the public-interest function of criminal justice – the protection of a collective good, the environment, irrespective of individual contingencies. This broadened conception of criminal justice is complemented, in Article 39, by an opening to civil society. By inviting States to grant standing to individuals with a sufficient interest and to non-governmental organisations engaged in environmental protection, 54 the Convention acknowledges the collective nature of environmental harm. It introduces a democratic dimension to the enforcement of environmental criminal law by enabling non-state actors to participate in proceedings that concern the public interest beyond individual disputes. 55 This participatory avenue, however, remains carefully framed: it does not create new procedural rights but encourages States to extend existing ones where equivalent mechanisms already exist in their domestic systems. 56 In this way, the Convention respects the diversity of national legal orders while fostering convergence towards greater participatory justice in environmental governance.
From the typology of offences to the structuring of ecological criminal liability
Chapter IV of the Convention provides a systematic and sectoral typology of offences, grouped by material domains: pollution, chemical and radioactive substances, waste, hazardous installations, ships, natural resources and biodiversity. This organisation reflects the intent to encompass the entire cycle of human activity likely to generate ecological harm – from industrial production to resource exploitation, including the circulation of substances and waste. Articles 12 to 18 address pollution and the use of hazardous substances, criminalising the unlawful discharge of harmful materials, the placing on the market of polluting products, and the manufacture or trade of prohibited substances such as mercury, fluorinated greenhouse gases and ozone-depleting compounds. This corpus modernises environmental criminal law by integrating contemporary threats linked to climate change and global pollution. Articles 19 to 21 focus on the illicit management and transfer of waste, as well as the operation of hazardous installations. By criminalising organisational forms of misconduct – such as operating without authorisation, mismanagement or irregular closure – the Convention establishes the criminal liability of corporate entities as a key element of structural risk prevention. Articles 22 and 23, dealing with maritime offences, fill a long-standing gap between the law of the sea and criminal law by penalising the illegal recycling of ships and the discharge of pollutants into marine waters. These provisions embody the ambition of an integrated approach that connects marine protection with the fight against transnational industrial crime. Articles 24 to 26 broaden the scope of criminal liability to encompass the preservation of natural resources, targeting offences such as the illegal abstraction of water, the trade in timber from unlawful logging and unauthorised mining activities. Through this expansion, the Convention affirms that the over-exploitation of natural resources constitutes a threat to the shared ecological heritage of humankind. Articles 27 to 29 address biodiversity, criminalising the killing of protected species, their illegal trade and the degradation of habitats within protected areas. This section assigns to criminal law a conservation function, recognising the intrinsic value of non-human life and the necessity of its protection through legal coercion. Finally, Article 30 establishes as criminal offences all acts concerning the introduction of invasive alien species of concern, when committed unlawfully and intentionally, and when they cause or are likely to cause degradation of the environment or harm to human health.
The Convention enshrines a method of normative integration that is both flexible and ambitious. States Parties are required to criminalise the conduct enumerated in the Convention while retaining the freedom to go beyond these minimum standards. 57 This ‘floor-not-ceiling’ mechanism reconciles two imperatives: national penal sovereignty, preserved through the flexibility clause and regional coherence, ensured by the establishment of common minimum requirements. The approach serves a dual purpose: first, to prevent disparities that might enable forum shopping by economic or criminal actors, and second, to foster normative equality among States Parties in their responses to environmental harm. The text leaves States a margin of appreciation in determining whether their domestic legislation already fulfils these obligations. 58 This flexibility reflects a pragmatic philosophy: the aim is not to impose a uniform criminal system but to build a convergent one grounded in shared principles such as precaution, responsibility and reparation. The Convention therefore does not require the mechanical adoption of new laws; rather, it encourages States to assess the compatibility of their existing legal frameworks with the treaty's standards, thereby promoting gradual harmonisation through internal adaptation rather than external constraint.
The Convention deepens the logic of accountability by establishing the criminal liability of legal persons as a cardinal principle of contemporary environmental criminal law. Article 34 constitutes its cornerstone: it acknowledges that serious harm to the environment does not always stem from isolated individual acts but may result from systemic or organisational failures within economic or institutional entities. Four cumulative elements must be met for such liability to arise. 59 First, one of the offences enumerated in the Convention – whether a direct offence, an attempt, an incitement or complicity – must have been committed. Second, the offence must have been carried out on behalf of the legal person, that is, in its economic or organisational interest, even indirectly. Third, the physical perpetrator must be a natural person exercising a managerial function within the entity concerned. Finally, that person must have acted within the scope of the powers delegated to them, whether of representation, decision-making or supervision. 60 These criteria reveal a deliberate intention to frame the liability of legal persons without diluting the notion of culpability: the functional link between the unlawful act and the organisation's decision-making sphere must be clearly established. This approach enshrines a foundational principle – vicarious criminal responsibility – under which the legal person is held accountable for the actions of those who embody its juridical will. In this sense, the Convention recognises the functional autonomy of legal entities while imposing on them a corresponding duty of enhanced vigilance. Environmental offences committed by corporate executives are not viewed as mere individual excesses of authority but as symptomatic of systemic dysfunction, thereby engaging the organisation as a whole.
Paragraph 2 of Article 34 extends this logic by envisaging situations in which the unlawful act is not committed by a director but by an employee or agent acting under the authority of the legal person. In such cases, the entity's liability is engaged when three conditions are met: the offence is committed by a subordinate, for the benefit of the legal person, and it has been made possible by a failure of supervision or control on the part of its management. 61 This provision marks a major conceptual shift: culpability no longer lies solely in the positive act of transgression but also in the omission of prevention. In other words, silence, inaction or managerial negligence become vectors of criminal liability. This duty of active oversight must be interpreted in light of the principle of due diligence. It requires senior management to implement appropriate measures (such as internal compliance policies, monitoring procedures, auditing mechanisms and whistle-blowing systems) to prevent employees or agents from engaging in unlawful conduct on behalf of the organisation. The threshold of diligence is context-sensitive and depends on several factors, including the size, nature and business sector of the legal person, as well as applicable professional standards or prevailing good practices. 62 This pragmatic flexibility avoids over-criminalising small entities while imposing a heightened duty of vigilance on major actors whose operations entail significant environmental risks.
Article 31 of the Convention introduces a major innovation by recognising the category of ‘particularly serious offences’, which stands at the summit of the hierarchy of environmental crimes. This provision reflects the Council of Europe's intention to elevate to the highest degree of criminal gravity those acts which, by their scale or consequences, threaten the very integrity of ecosystems. It thus establishes a gradation of ecological harm, distinguishing ordinary offences from the most destructive ones, characterised by their systemic and irreversible nature. In doing so, the Convention aligns itself with a broader doctrinal and political movement seeking to recognise, at the international level, the notion of ecocide as an autonomous crime. The acts covered by this provision encompass conduct resulting in the destruction or irreversible, widespread and substantial degradation of an ecosystem or a habitat of significant environmental value. 63 Examples include large-scale pollution, massive discharges of toxic substances, devastating wildfires or industrial accidents whose consequences persist for decades. 64 Intent remains a decisive criterion: 65 the provision aims to exclude accidental or negligent harm, targeting instead conduct driven by deliberate intent to cause damage or by a manifest indifference to foreseeable ecological catastrophe. However, Article 31 does not impose a uniform level of sanction for such offences. It leaves it to domestic legislations to determine appropriate penalties, while imposing on State Parties an obligation to ensure an aggravated legal qualification – that is, to formally recognise such acts as ‘particularly serious offences’. This mechanism of gradation strengthens regional coherence within the repressive system and introduces a proportional dimension into criminal responses. It also distinguishes between diffuse or localised harm and systemic harm that disrupts the global balance of ecosystems. Through this differentiation, the Convention confers upon criminal law both an ethical and a symbolic function: affirming that certain forms of environmental harm belong to the category of crimes against nature itself.
Sanctions and aggravating circumstances: From punitive logic to ecological responsibility
Article 35 of the Convention completes the repressive architecture of the instrument by enshrining the fundamental principle of ‘effective, proportionate and dissuasive sanctions’. In doing so, it reflects a balanced penal philosophy: repression is meaningful only when it combines exemplarity, fairness and ecological purpose. Environmental punishment is thus not conceived merely as a retributive measure but as a tool serving both reparation and prevention. By requiring Parties to incorporate into their domestic law a system of penalties proportionate to the gravity of the harm caused, 66 Article 35 introduces a normative gradation that ensures the credibility of environmental criminal law. The first paragraph applies to natural persons, who remain the direct perpetrators of offences. States must provide for terms of imprisonment, potentially coupled with fines. This dual combination (deprivation of liberty and financial penalty) reconciles the symbolic gravity of punishment with the need for economic redress. The requirement of ‘effectiveness’ underscores that sanctions must be both applicable and enforceable; ‘proportionality’ preserves the legitimacy of the penal system; and ‘deterrence’ reaffirms the preventive function of criminal law, now central to environmental governance. The second paragraph extends these principles to legal persons, in line with Article 34. The Convention recognises that many environmental offences stem from organisational decisions or industrial logic. Consequently, corporations, institutions and organisations must be subject not only to monetary fines, whether criminal or administrative, but also to a range of structural measures, such as the prohibition to carry out certain activities, exclusion from public procurement, withdrawal of licences, judicial supervision or even dissolution. 67 This graduated approach also encompasses the treatment of criminal proceeds. Paragraph 3 establishes a regime of freezing, seizure and confiscation of the instruments and proceeds of offences, based on a simple yet powerful idea: depriving offenders of any economic benefit derived from illicit conduct. Given the financial dimension of environmental crime – whether illegal trade in species, waste trafficking or profit-driven pollution – such an approach to punishment is indispensable. Paragraph 4 introduces a major innovation: environmental restoration as a complementary or alternative measure to traditional penalties. This form of restorative justice seeks, as far as possible, to re-establish the ecological balance disrupted by the offence. It may be ordered as a principal or subsidiary measure, depending on national legal systems, and may be executed at the offender's expense if voluntary compliance is lacking. 68 This flexibility ensures that the ultimate purpose of environmental criminal law (the protection and restoration of the natural environment) remains at the heart of the penal system. By placing ecological reparation on the same footing as punishment, the Convention replaces a traditional punitive logic with one of active environmental responsibility, where sanctions become instruments of ecological rehabilitation. The Explanatory Report emphasises, in this regard, an innovative avenue for implementation: Parties may consider establishing a dedicated fund, financed by the proceeds of fines imposed under the Convention, to support prevention initiatives, restoration programmes and decontamination operations linked to environmental offences and their devastating consequences. 69 Rather than treating punishment as an end in itself, the Convention transforms it into a mechanism for ecological reinvestment.
Article 36 of the Convention introduces a qualitative gradation of criminal responsibility through the explicit recognition of aggravating circumstances. This provision demonstrates a deliberate effort to calibrate the penal response according to the degree of severity and the context of the offence, while respecting the diversity of national legal traditions. By providing that such circumstances ‘may be taken into account’, 70 the Convention establishes an obligation of possibility rather than an obligation of result: States must enable courts to consider them without mandating systematic application. This flexibility is crucial, as it preserves the balance between regional harmonisation and national specificities, in accordance with the clause ensuring compatibility with ‘the applicable provisions of domestic law’. 71 The first aggravating circumstance, relating to serious, widespread, long-lasting or irreversible damage caused to an ecosystem, 72 establishes a novel ecological scale of gravity within a Council of Europe instrument. It acknowledges that environmental impact must be assessed not only by the magnitude of harm but also through its temporal dimension (duration) and irreversibility. In other words, the more structurally and persistently an ecosystem's balance is impaired, the greater the degree of culpability. This approach elevates the ecosystem to the status of an autonomous legal interest, whose destruction warrants an intensified penal response. The second circumstance, concerning offences committed within the framework of an organised criminal group, 73 transposes into the environmental field the international standards developed for combating transnational organised crime. It affirms the recognition of organised environmental crime as a structured phenomenon driven by profit-oriented economic logics. The third circumstance, involving the use of forged documents, 74 reflects an acute awareness of the technical and administrative dimension of environmental fraud. In a domain where permits, certifications and declarations serve as crucial regulatory tools, the falsification of such documents does not constitute a mere formal offence but a means of concealment that undermines States’ ability to control polluting activities. The fourth circumstance, relating to the commission of an offence by a public official in the exercise of official duties, 75 is grounded in an ethic of environmental integrity. By elevating the abuse of public authority in the context of ecological crime to an aggravating factor, the Convention establishes a direct link between environmental protection and anti-corruption efforts. It thereby affirms the State's heightened responsibility, not only as a regulator but also as a guarantor of transparency and accountability. The fifth aggravating circumstance, concerning recidivism, 76 reinforces the preventive function of environmental criminal law. By recognising the repetition of an offence as a factor of severity, the Convention strengthens the continuum between punishment and deterrence. Finally, the sixth aggravating circumstance, concerning offences generating or intended to generate substantial financial benefits or savings, 77 embodies the explicit integration of the polluter-pays principle into the punitive framework. By targeting economic motivation, the Convention transforms illicit profit into an indicator of penal dangerousness. It thereby seeks to neutralise the economic appeal of environmental crime by aligning the severity of punishment with the magnitude of unlawful gain.
From territoriality to solidarity: The expanding reach of environmental criminal jurisdiction
Article 33 of the Convention defines the jurisdictional bases that State Parties must establish to ensure the effective prosecution of environmental offences. The text does not compel national authorities to exercise jurisdiction systematically but requires them to provide, within their domestic legal systems, the necessary foundations to enable its use whenever circumstances so warrant. 78 This approach reflects the drafters’ intention to reconcile the principle of sovereignty with the imperative of penal effectiveness, thereby avoiding jurisdictional gaps that could hinder the prosecution of environmental crimes. The first basis, set out in paragraph 1(a), rests on the classical principle of territoriality, under which each State must prosecute offences committed within its territory. To this are added two variants, contained in subparagraphs (b) and (c) of paragraph 1, concerning offences committed on board ships flying the State's flag or aircraft registered under its domestic law. These provisions address the challenges posed by transboundary environmental crime, particularly where the offence occurs outside the State's territory but within a space falling under its functional jurisdiction as the flag or registration State. They ensure continuity of prosecutorial authority and help prevent impunity in maritime and aerial spaces.
Paragraph 1(d) of Article 33 enshrines the principle of active nationality, whereby a State may exercise jurisdiction over its nationals who commit offences abroad. Rooted in the Romano-Germanic legal tradition, this principle represents a significant expansion of States’ jurisdictional reach in environmental matters, enabling the prosecution of wrongful conduct even when it occurs beyond their territorial borders. It reflects the determination to prevent perpetrators of serious environmental offences from escaping liability merely because their acts took place extraterritorially. In this sense, the Convention reinforces the idea that environmental protection constitutes a collective interest transcending national boundaries. Yet, consistent with its commitment to legal pluralism, the Convention allows States to adapt this competence by entering reservations or restricting its scope to certain categories of offences or specific circumstances. 79 This flexibility ensures that the provision aligns with domestic constitutional traditions and the fundamental principles of national criminal justice systems. Complementing this framework, paragraph 2 of Article 33 introduces what is known as passive personality jurisdiction, based on the nationality of the victim. This optional ground of jurisdiction rests on a dual rationale: first, that a State has a legitimate interest in protecting its nationals wherever they may be; and second, that serious environmental harm frequently has transboundary effects, potentially impacting the health, livelihoods or natural heritage of individuals beyond national borders. 80 By incorporating this basis of jurisdiction, the Convention articulates an expanded conception of environmental solidarity, in which the protection of individuals is inseparable from the preservation of shared ecological goods.
Paragraph 3 of Article 33 enshrines the principle of aut dedere aut judicare (extradite or prosecute), a cornerstone of contemporary international criminal law. It requires States to establish jurisdiction over their nationals when extradition is denied, thereby ensuring that the seriousness of environmental offences cannot find sanctuary in jurisdictional loopholes. This provision aligns with the framework of multilateral instruments addressing transnational crimes, reflecting a deliberate effort to incorporate environmental criminality into the broader field of international criminal justice. Aware of the potential for jurisdictional conflicts between States, the Convention establishes in paragraph 4 a mechanism for consultation. The States concerned are invited to confer with one another to avoid duplicative proceedings, the fragmentation of prosecutorial efforts, and undue hardship for suspects and witnesses. This mechanism aims to rationalise prosecutions and promote a functional distribution of cases according to each State's capacities and legitimate interests. The obligation to consult remains flexible, applying only ‘where appropriate’, thereby preserving procedural efficiency and the integrity of ongoing investigations. Finally, paragraph 5 of Article 33 confirms that the jurisdictional rules set forth in the Convention are not exhaustive. States retain the discretion to extend their extraterritorial jurisdiction to additional situations – for instance, with respect to persons habitually resident in their territory or to acts committed abroad that harm environmental assets under their jurisdiction. Through this open-ended clause, the Convention encourages a dynamic and adaptive approach to criminal jurisdiction, attuned to the transnational and systemic nature of environmental crime. In essence, Article 33 embodies a philosophy of jurisdiction grounded in complementarity and cooperation rather than exclusivity.
Finally, the transnational dimension of the Convention finds its clearest expression in Article 40, devoted to international cooperation in criminal matters. The drafting committee recognised the inherently global nature of environmental crime and the financial flows that accompany it: pollution, waste trafficking and the illegal exploitation of natural resources transcend national borders. In response, the Convention establishes a comprehensive framework for mutual assistance, prevention, prosecution and enforcement, grounded in the broadest possible collaboration among the Parties. 81 This framework encompasses the seizure and confiscation of the proceeds of crime, the protection of witnesses and whistle-blowers, as well as mutual legal assistance and extradition. By inviting States to treat the Convention itself as a legal basis for cooperation, even in the absence of a bilateral treaty, Article 40 strengthens both the coherence and the universal reach of the European regime. This threefold movement (the empowering of prosecution, the opening of procedures and the internationalisation of cooperation) gives the Convention remarkable normative depth. It transforms the logic of criminal law from one centred on post-damage repression to one grounded in prevention, participation and solidarity in the protection of the environment. In doing so, the Convention marks a decisive normative turning point in European environmental governance, heralding the emergence of a genuine jus commune of environmental protection across the continent.
A cooperative and inclusive monitoring mechanism
One of the major institutional innovations introduced by the Convention lies in the establishment of a novel monitoring mechanism designed to ensure the effective implementation of its provisions. Set out in Chapter VIII, this mechanism reflects the participatory governance model characteristic of the Council of Europe, where the effectiveness of legal instruments rests less on coercion than on cooperation, dialogue and collective evaluation. Article 1, paragraph 2, provides the foundation for this approach: ‘In order to ensure effective implementation of its provisions by the Parties, this Convention establishes a specific monitoring mechanism’. 82 This clause gives the system a strategic dimension: it is not merely an administrative tool but a normative consolidation mechanism, ensuring that environmental criminal law commitments do not remain a dead letter. At the centre of this system stands the ‘Committee of the Parties’, whose creation is explicitly provided for in Article 46. As an intergovernmental body composed of representatives of the Parties, the Committee forms the cornerstone of the monitoring structure. It embodies an approach rooted in shared responsibility and institutional transparency, enabling States collectively to assess their progress in implementing environmental criminal law. Article 48 sets out its functions, which go far beyond mere formal verification: ‘The Committee of the Parties shall monitor the implementation of this Convention’ 83 and ‘shall facilitate the collection, analysis and exchange of information, experience and good practice between States’. 84 In this sense, the Committee operates both as an evaluative body and as a cooperative forum, combining the rigour of legal scrutiny with the flexibility of political dialogue. This mechanism reflects a renewed conception of international supervision based on participatory compliance. Rather than imposing a hierarchical model, it favours horizontal coordination, mutual learning and the dissemination of good practices. In doing so, the Convention helps redefine the nature of oversight within the European legal order: it transforms control into a space of collective governance, where State responsibility is exercised within a framework of solidarity and progressive development.
This cooperative dimension constitutes one of the most distinctive and innovative features of the monitoring mechanism established by the Convention. By fostering the exchange of experience and the circulation of expertise, the Committee of the Parties becomes a genuine laboratory for environmental criminal governance, enabling States to identify shared challenges, pool best practices and develop convergent strategies. This horizontal approach, consistent with the Council of Europe's long-standing method, rests on the premise that the effectiveness of an international instrument depends not solely on the rigour of its obligations, but on the collective capacity of the Parties to learn, adapt and refine their public policies. In this regard, the Committee of the Parties continues the institutional tradition of the Council of Europe's participatory bodies, such as GRECO (Group of States against Corruption) and GRETA (Group of Experts on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings). Yet it distinguishes itself through its broader institutional and geographical openness, which extends the reach of environmental governance beyond the European framework. Article 46, paragraph 4, provides for the participation of non-member States of the Council of Europe in the Committee's work, provided that they contribute to the financing of its activities. This provision operates in tandem with Article 54, which authorises the Committee of Ministers, following consultation and the unanimous consent of the Parties, to invite any third State to accede to the Convention. Through this dual mechanism of inclusion, the Convention transcends its regional origins to become an open platform for international cooperation in environmental criminal law. This clause of openness embodies an unmistakably universalist ambition: the protection of the environment through criminal law is conceived not as a regional concern confined to Europe, but as a global imperative. By allowing non-European States to participate in and adhere to the Convention, the Council of Europe extends its normative influence beyond the continent, promoting the diffusion of the European model of environmental justice within the wider international legal order.
The inclusive nature of the monitoring mechanism also finds expression in the institutional openness of the Committee of the Parties to a broad range of actors. In accordance with Article 47 of the Convention, several organs of the Council of Europe are represented within the Committee, including the Parliamentary Assembly, the Commissioner for Human Rights, the CDPC and other relevant intergovernmental committees. This plural structure ensures a transversal approach in which the legal, political and ethical dimensions of environmental criminality are addressed in a complementary manner. In addition to these institutional representatives, the Committee of Ministers may invite other pertinent bodies of the Council of Europe, as well as representatives of civil society, including non-governmental organisations eligible for observer status. Although such participants do not possess voting rights, 85 their involvement adds a vital participatory dimension to the mechanism, enhancing transparency and embedding democratic accountability within the monitoring process. By incorporating external voices, the Convention transforms the Committee of the Parties into a forum for collective deliberation, where technical expertise, institutional knowledge and societal perspectives intersect to strengthen the effective implementation of the norm. This pluralism of actors is far from a mere gesture of symbolic inclusivity; it constitutes a substantive condition for both legitimacy and effectiveness. Through the combined oversight of technical, political and civic actors, the Council of Europe Convention on the Protection of the Environment through Criminal Law enshrines a profoundly democratic vision of environmental governance – one in which the protection of nature becomes a shared endeavour, situated at the intersection of law, science and collective conscience.
Article 48(3) assigns to the Committee of the Parties a role that extends far beyond mere administrative supervision. It must ‘facilitate the effective use and implementation of this Convention, including the identification of any problems and the effects of any declaration or reservation made under this Convention’. 86 It must also ‘express an opinion on any question concerning the application of this Convention and facilitate the exchange of information on significant legal, policy or technological developments’. 87 Through this dual mandate of facilitation and interpretation, the Committee functions as a genuine mechanism of normative oversight, responsible for ensuring the internal coherence of the Convention and anticipating potential implementation challenges. This role of advisory and anticipatory governance situates the Committee at the intersection of political supervision and technical coordination. It does not merely record formal compliance with treaty obligations; rather, it analyses the practical effects of reservations, reviews domestic practices, and encourages the progressive harmonisation of penal responses. By serving as a permanent forum for deliberation, the Committee sustains the vitality of the Convention and promotes its continuous adaptation to legal, policy and technological developments in the environmental field. The Committee of the Parties thus transcends the function of a bureaucratic reporting body. It stands as the keystone of a cooperative governance mechanism grounded in participation, dialogue and mutual learning. By placing interstate cooperation and institutional inclusivity at the heart of its monitoring function, the Convention introduces an innovative model of shared compliance. In this framework, enforcement is no longer conceived as a coercive process but as a collective responsibility rooted in transparency and solidarity. The penal norm thereby evolves from an instrument of sanction into a vector of cooperation, and implementation becomes a shared commitment to the pursuit of environmental justice.
Conclusion
The Council of Europe Convention on the Protection of the Environment through Criminal Law represents a decisive milestone in the long trajectory of European efforts to criminalise environmental harm. It consolidates more than five decades of normative experimentation and institutional reflection, translating the growing awareness that environmental protection cannot be left solely to administrative regulation or civil liability, but must be anchored in the coercive authority of criminal law. By articulating a coherent system of offences, sanctions, procedural guarantees and international cooperation, the Convention offers the first genuinely comprehensive framework for environmental criminal law at the regional level. Its innovations are manifold. Substantively, it affirms the environment as an autonomous legal interest, elevating ecological harm to the rank of a criminally protected value. Structurally, it integrates the logic of governance into the penal sphere, linking prevention, repression, coordination and participation. Institutionally, it creates an inclusive and cooperative monitoring mechanism, capable of ensuring that implementation is guided by transparency, dialogue and shared responsibility. Through this multifaceted architecture, the Convention does not merely codify environmental offences; it lays the groundwork for an emerging European jus commune of environmental protection, uniting States around common principles of precaution, accountability and ecological solidarity.
Yet, the effectiveness of this ambitious instrument will ultimately depend on its entry into force and its practical implementation. The success of the Convention will hinge on the willingness of States to translate its provisions into robust domestic legislation, to allocate adequate resources to enforcement authorities, and to ensure that the criminal justice system can respond effectively to the complexity and transnational nature of environmental crime. Persisting disparities in national capacities, potential overlaps with the European Union's legal framework and the challenge of integrating scientific expertise into criminal proceedings all remain areas requiring continued attention. Despite these uncertainties, there is little doubt that the Convention marks a decisive normative turning point in European environmental governance. It embodies a transition from fragmented regulation to systemic accountability, from symbolic commitments to enforceable obligations. By bridging regional and global dynamics, it heralds the consolidation of a common European space of environmental justice – one where the protection of nature becomes not only a moral imperative, but a legally binding duty shared across the continent.
Footnotes
Funding
The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.