Setting the Scene
From 28 to 30 October, legal practitioners from all over the world gathered in The Hague for the conference ‘International collaboration and cooperation in the fight against environmental crime’. The conference was organised by the European Network of Prosecutors for the Environment (ENPE) and Eurojust, the EU’s Judicial Cooperation Unit. It focused on concrete steps to improve the fight against environmental offences, including serious and organised crime.
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came together at the Eurojust headquarters in The Hague
Words of Welcome
Stientje van Veldhoven, Dutch State Secretary for Infrastructure and Water Management
Ladislav Hamran, Eurojust President & Anne Brosnan, ENPE President
The Global Nature of Environmental Challenges
“Environmental crime exists, develops and spreads across borders. Just as criminal networks operate across borders, across continents even. To prevent and reduce environmental crime, we must therefore be effective on a continental level and a global level. The fight against environmental crime requires political commitment and awareness from our leaders. This awareness is growing: thousands of people are taking to the streets in support of further action to protect the environment and against climate change. I think this is very well reflected in the agenda of the President-elect of the European Commission. We plan to be explicit in our support for the priority of fighting environmental crime and we hope you will see this in our future work programmes.”
Aurel Ciobanu-Dordea, Director for Implementation, Governance and Semester in the EU Directorate-General for Environment
Aurel Ciobanu-Dordea, Director for Implementation, Governance and Semester in the EU Directorate-General for Environment
“Two years ago, INTERPOL’s Pollution Crime Working Group initiated a country-led enforcement operation called ‘30 days of action’, where 43 countries worked together to tackle illegal waste trafficking. As a result, police detected 664 cases of illegal sites or trade, totalling 1.5 million tonnes of illicit waste. Next, we started operation ‘30 days at sea’, with 58 countries working together to tackle marine pollution. In those 30 days, inspectors conducted 15,446 inspections, detected 1,500 violations and made 11 arrests. In the course of the operation, South Africa even had their first-ever conviction of marine pollution. It leads to immediate results. That’s why, this year, we initiated operation ‘30 days at sea 2.0.’, also focusing on marine pollution.”
Joe Poux, Deputy Chief Environmental Crimes Section, U.S. Department of Justice and Chair of INTERPOL’s Pollution Crime Working Group
Joe Poux, Deputy Chief Environmental Crimes Section, U.S. Department of Justice and Chair of INTERPOL’s Pollution Crime Working Group
“The EPA Network is an informal group bringing together the heads and directors of Environmental Protection Agencies and similar bodies across Europe. We have two plenary meetings per year and our mission is to share experiences at a strategic level on the implementation of environmental policy and the state of the environment in Europe. We find similarities around government and the challenges we face. Since there tends to be only one environmental agency in each country, we do not have peers at a national level. So talking amongst peers at a European level is really useful. We also have interest groups on specific topics, where staff of the agencies come together to talk about specific issues.”
Laura Burke, Director General of the Environmental Protection Agency Ireland
Laura Burke, Director General of the Environmental Protection Agency Ireland
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