Background
The European Crime Directive, 2008 directive on the protection of the environment through criminal law went through a process of revision starting in 2023.
Significant moments for the campaign
On the 16th November 2023 the European Union added a sanction for crimes comparable to ecocide into the EU Environmental Crime Directive:
This is the result of over 10 years of campaigning by a huge number of people from different organisations and institutions and is an incredible step forward towards an international crime of ecocide.
On the 20th May 2024 the new European Environmental Crimes Directive was adopted giving member states 2 years to transpose the directive with a deadline of May 2026.
- Offences: The Directive includes a comprehensive up-to-date list of conducts to be established as criminal offences in the national legal order of Member States. Compared to the 2008 Directive, several new offence categories have been introduced, such as:
- unlawful ship recycling and water extraction
- serious breaches of EU chemicals and mercury legislation
- placing on the market and export of relevant commodities and products in breach of the Union Anti-Deforestation Regulation.
- Qualified offences: In addition, Member States are obliged to establish as qualified offences cases where particularly serious damage to and destruction of the environment is caused by committing one of the offences listed in the Directive. These qualified offences shall be subject to more severe penalties for natural and legal persons than the ones for the other offences.
- Penalties: The Directive establishes a graduated system of minimum-maximum imprisonment penalties and, for legal persons, introduces two alternative fining methods based on fixed amounts between €24 and €40 million and the total annual worldwide turnover of the legal person concerned.
European Environmental Crime Directive 2024:
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dir/2024/1203/oj/eng
The Directive has introduced crimes comparable to ecocide as a qualified offence relating to 20 specific types of environmental crime.
National Transposition Pages:
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/NIM/?uri=CELEX:32024L1203