The ecocrime directive and its translation into legal practice

Abstract

Directive 2008/99/EC, on the protection of the environment through criminal law, was approved after fierce dispute among European institutions. Its aim was to harmonise the definition of environmental offences in the EU and to ensure that they would be punished with ‘proportionate, effective and dissuasive’ criminal sanction. The authors, after having outlined the notion of environmental crime that the harmonisation instrument wishes to combat, critically assess its policy objectives and investigate the legal and practical outcomes of its implementation. In the final paragraph, they discuss the challenges faced by national authorities when trying to translate such supranational legislation into court practices.