A Critical Evaluation of the New EU Environmental Crime Directive 2024/1203

After just over two years of negotiations, the EU Environmental Crime Directive 2024/1203 was finally published in April 2024. The Directive considerably improves on the text of the previous EU Environmental Crime Directive of 2008, which was introduced in the aftermath of the ECJ rulings on Environmental Crimes (2005) and Ship-Source Pollution (2007).

The 2008 Directive has been subject to considerable criticism, including for the fact that it lacks detailed rules on criminal penalties or more advanced mechanisms for interstate cooperation to combat transboundary environmental crimes. In response, the 2024 Directive not only extends the number of environmental criminal offences in the EU Member States, but it also introduces specific types and levels of criminal penalties and specific rules on interstate cooperation in criminal matters.

This article critically assesses to which extent the new EU rules improve the previous legal framework for combating environmental crimes. in particular with the expansion of criminal offences and the introduction of specific criminal and non-criminal penalties.

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