EFFACE Policy Briefs on Environmental Crime

A part of the work for the research project "European Union Action to Fight Environmental Crime" (EFFACE) is the publication of Policy Briefs. These Briefs highlight EFFACE core results and their policy implications and give recommendations for a coordinated EU approach to reduce the broad impacts of crimes against the environment. The Policy Briefs are available for download.

General Policy Briefs

Policy Brief 1: The criminal justice system in addressing environmental crime

The first EFFACE Policy Brief, Limitations and challenges of the criminal justice system in addressing environmental crime, examines how environmental crime is a growing challenge for the EU and the criminal justice systems of its Member States. Case examples including illegal waste dumping provide insights on how an improved understanding of the impact and severity of environmental crimes across the EU is needed to fight environmental crimes more effectively.

Policy Brief 2: Organised environmental crime

EFFACE Policy Brief 2, Organised Environmental Crime: The need for combating environmental crime as a serious and organised category of offense, calls making combating organized environmental crime a higher priority. Such crimes can be difficult to identify in overall crime statistics and in their impacts on victims, but the results of this type of illegal activity have consequences for economies, human health, biodiversity and good governance.

Policy Brief 3: Quantifying the Impacts of Environmental Crime

The third EFFACE Policy Brief, Quantifying the Impacts of Environmental Crime, reports on the challenges in gathering qualitative, quantitative and economic data on the impacts of environmental crime. Because the gathering of such information is important to help target enforcement activity and improve environmental legislation, the Policy Brief calls for considerably improving the gathering of impact information.

Policy Brief 4: The EUs Strengths and Weaknesses in Tackling Environmental Crime

EFFACE Policy Brief 4 on the EUs Strengths and Weaknesses in Tackling Environmental Crime summarises the results of the analysis of strenghts, weaknesses, opportunites and threats (SWOT) related the measures in place at the EU and Member State level to combat environmental crime. The SWTO analysis has been conducted as part of the EFFACE project. This policy brief describes the strengths and weaknesses identified in the SWOT analysis. It provides a baseline from which the conclusions of the project regarding the policy opportunities at EU, Member State and international level are developed.

Policy Briefs presenting case studies on environmental crime

Members of the EFFACE project have compiled twelve case studies on different types of environmental crime (the full case study reports are available here). For each case, a Policy Brief provides a summary of the policy implications and recommendations for the respective topic of the case study:

• Environmental crime in Armenia: A case study on mining
• Victims in the "Land of Fires": A case study on the consequences of burnt and buried waste in Campania, Italy
• Illegal shipment of e-waste from the EU: A case study on the illegal export of e-waste from the EU to China
• EUTR CITES and money laundering: A case study  on the challenges to coordinated enforcement in the global forest products sector
• A Case Study on the EU's promotion of environmental protection through criminal law in Kosovo
• The Aznalcollar and Kolontar mining accidents: A case study on the criminal responsibility of operators and administrators
• The Illegal wildlife trade: A case study report on illegal wildlife trade in the United Kingdom, Norway, Colombia and  Brazil
• Mining gold and mercury pollution in the Guiana Shield: A case study on the role of the EU in fighting environmental crime
• Can Cocaine Production in Colombia be linked to Environmental Crime?: A case study on the effect of EU legislation on the trade
• Environmental crime and corporate miscompliance: case study on the ILVA steel plant in Italy
• A case study on illegal localized pollution incidents in the EU
• A case study on illegal fishing and the role of rights-based fisheries management in improving compliance