Transnational Environmental Crime

Toward an Eco-global Criminology

Rob White

• Publisher: Willan
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781843928027
• eBook ISBN: 9781136637582
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Criminology
• Index: Social Sciences

This book provides a comprehensive introduction to and overview of eco-global criminology. Eco-global criminology refers to a criminological approach that is informed by ecological considerations and by a critical analysis that is global in scale and perspective. Based upon eco-justice conceptions of harm, it focuses on transgressions against environments, non-human species and humans. At the centre of eco-global criminology is analysis of transnational environmental crime. This includes crimes related to pollution (of air, water and land) and crimes against wildlife (including illegal trade in ivory as well as live animals). It also includes those harms that pose threats to the environment more generally (such as global warming). In addressing these issues, the book deals with topics such as the conceptualization of environmental crime or harm, the researching of transnational environmental harm, climate change and social conflict, threats to biodiversity, toxic waste and the transference of harm, prosecution and sentencing of environmental crimes, and environmental victimization and transnational activism. This book argues that analysis of transnational environmental crime needs to incorporate different notions of harm, and that the overarching perspective of eco-global criminology provides the framework for this.

Transnational Environmental Crime will be an essential resource for students, academics, policy-makers, environmental managers, police, magistrates and others with a general interest in environmental issues.

1 Transnational environmental crime

Introduction

This book provides a comprehensive introduction to and overview of eco-global criminology. At the centre of eco-global criminology is analysis of transnational environmental crime. The book extends work that is ongoing in the area of environmental crimes and harms, much of which has been designed to promote discussion and debate within and beyond the field of criminology about key global environmental issues (White 2008a, 2010a). For this book, the underlying premise is that transnational environmental harm is a crime. Consistent with this view is the argument that any analysis of transnational environmental crime needs to incorporate different notions of harm, and that the overarching perspective of eco-global criminology provides a useful framework to do this.

One of the characteristics of the contemporary world is the interconnectedness of people, systems and networks, a concept that is captured in the notion of the ‘butterfly effect’. What happens in one part of the world, no matter how small or seemingly trivial, will have an impact – and sometimes a very large impact – in another part of the world. Thus, so the story goes, the fluttering of butterfly wings in the southern hemisphere can translate into hurricane force winds in the northern. We are all interconnected, in complex ways, for better and for worse. The local is indeed global in this worldwide system of networks and flows.

This book reflects these concerns with interconnection and causal forces. The focus of the book is on transnational environmental crime and the many dimensions pertaining to this kind of social and ecological harm. My intention is to provide a theoretically informed, yet empirically based, account of transnational environmental crime. The primary purpose of the book is in fact to develop the conceptual universe within which such phenomena can best be understood, rather than provide substantive and extensive documentation of these crimes as such (for this, see White 2009a, 2010a). In order to do this, further development of eco-global criminology is essential.

Eco-global criminology provides a ‘framework of analysis’ that directs our attention to particular problems and particular ways of seeing and analysing the world around us. It is based upon three intertwined conceptual categories: the ecological, the transnational, and the criminal/harmful. Eco-global criminology is not a ‘theory’ as such, since it does not purport to offer an overarching causal explanation for transnational environmental crime. It does not seek to answer the question of why things happen or occur; rather, it is concerned with matters of how things are as they are. Answers to the ‘why’ question are instead devolved to lower levels of abstraction (i.e. concrete cases relating to prosecution of offenders) and are specific to the topic at hand (e.g. explanations for the low penalties assigned to environmental offenders). Nevertheless, the book as a whole is oriented towards the theoretical rather than the descriptive, towards exposition of concepts rather than reporting of empirical studies.

As a theoretical text, the book is intended to deal with a series of basic questions pertaining to transnational environmental crime. These initially pertain to definitions of transnational environmental crime (and its varied dimensions), and the development of a criminological framework whereby we can interpret such crimes (eco-global criminology). The centrality of ecological considerations is also given weight by the inclusion of chapters that specifically frame environmental crimes through an ecological lens. Chapters on climate change, biodiversity and pollution demonstrate the profound ways in which ‘nature’ is being transformed, used and abused across several different dimensions. These chapters also illustrate the urgency and immediacy of environmental issues in relation to the health and well-being of all living creatures and ecosystems on the planet.

The book then returns to more conventional criminological approaches to the study of crime. We want to know who the main perpetrators of the crimes are, and how and why they do what they do. We want to expose the different types of victimisation associated with environmental crime, including non-human animals and specific local environments. We want to examine how environmental criminals and vandals are being dealt with by the institutions of criminal justice and its relevant agencies such as environmental law enforcement officials and courts. The limits and contradictions of formal criminal justice responses are explored through the advent and impact of transnational activists into the environmental crime arena. In each of these chapters, key concepts will be identified as well as current trends and issues.

This book is one in a rapidly emerging list of green criminology texts. Its specific contribution lies in its attempt to consider the main issues pertaining to transnational environmental crime in explicitly theoretical terms. My interest is in asking and responding to two core questions of social analysis: What (or who) is x, and how do we study x? This entails both conceptualisation of what it is, and the development of methodological strategies to study it. As a theoretical text, what follows is both exploratory and never-ending. It is and must always be a work in progress. As we illuminate the past and the present, the future opens up new doors and new ways of looking at the world. Yet, as the chapter on climate change especially highlights, our future is fragile. Theory must be tied to action if it is to have meaning. This, too, is a major underlying theme of the present work.

This chapter begins the exploration by considering the main features of transnational environmental crime. This involves consideration of borders and geographical spaces, of specific transgressions labelled as environmental, and of harms that are deemed serious enough to be crimes.

What is transnational environmental crime?

To speak of environmental crime or eco-crime is to acknowledge some kind of specificity in the act or omission that makes it distinctly relevant to environmental considerations. Yet, as with crime generally, there is much dispute over what gets defined as environmentally harmful and what ends up with the legal status as ‘crime’ per se.

Transnational environmental crime, as defined in conventional legal terms, refers to:

• unauthorised acts or omissions that are against the law and therefore subject to criminal prosecution and criminal sanctions;

• crimes that involve some kind of cross-border transference and an international or global dimension; and

• crimes related to pollution (of air, water and land) and crimes against wildlife (including illegal trade in ivory as well as live animals).

These are the key focus of national and international laws relating to environmental matters, and are the main task areas of agencies such as Interpol.

In its more expansive definition, as used by green criminologists, for example, transnational environmental crime also extends to harms. It therefore includes:

• transgressions that are harmful to humans, environments and non-human animals, regardless of legality per se; and

• environmental-related harms that are facilitated by the state, as well as corporations and other powerful actors, insofar as these institutions have the capacity to shape official definitions of environmental crime in ways that allow or condone environmentally harmful practices.

The definition of transnational environmental crime is, therefore, contentious and ambiguous. Much depends upon who is defining the harm, and what criteria are used in assessing the nature of the activities so described (for example, legal versus ecological, criminal justice versus environmental justice) (see Situ and Emmons 2000; Beirne and South 2007; White 2008a). These issues are discussed in further depth in Chapter 2.

The post-Second World War period has seen major growth in the internationalisation of treaties, agreements, protocols and conventions in relation to environmental protection and with respect to the securing of environmental resources. Nation states have in recent years been more interested in taking governmental action on environmental matters, since much of this pertains to national economic interests. Moreover, the transboundary nature of environmental harm is evident in a variety of international protocols and conventions that deal with such matters as the illegal trade in ozone-depleting substances, the dumping and illegal transport of hazardous waste, illegal trade in chemicals such as persistent organic pollutants, and illegal dumping of oil and other wastes in oceans (Hayman and Brack 2002). A major concern today is the proliferation of ‘e’-waste generated by the disposal of tens of thousands of computers and other equipment.

Some of the major international initiatives that formally specify certain activities as offences include (Forni 2010):

• Convention for Prevention of Maritime Pollution by Dumping Wastes and Other Matters;

• Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species of Wildlife Fauna and Flora (CITES);

• International Tropical Timber Agreement;

• Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer;

• Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer;

• Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal;

• United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change;

• Kyoto Protocol.

Specific international agreements are also identified and spelled out in the subsequent substantive chapters on climate change, biodiversity and pollution/ waste.

Examination of transnational environmental harm also needs to take into account geographical locations of varying environmentally harmful practices. This might include analysis of production (toxic materials), transit points (illegal trade – at sea, on land, in particular regions) and end points (waste dumping). A global mapping of harmful practices can serve to provide useful insights into how harm is transferred around the planet, and ultimately who or what is responsible for which kinds of harm. Simultaneously, the combined effects of human transformations of nature are having repercussions well beyond the local and regional. This is especially the case when it comes to global warming, as discussed in Chapter .

Environmental crime

A basic argument of this book is that environmental harm is a crime. The question then becomes what criteria can be used to substantiate specific claims that something is harmful, and whether it is harmful to the extent that warrants application of the label ‘criminal’.

Typically the definition of ‘crime’ is usually bound up with the state. Crime is thus ordinarily defined as being an act committed or an omission of duty, injurious to the public welfare, for which punishment is prescribed by law, imposed in a judicial proceeding usually brought in the name of the state. This approach to defining crime sees the state as occupying the central place in defining what is criminal and what is not, and crime is always defined in relation to the law.

Crime is also defined in terms of seriousness of harm. That is, the criminal law identifies certain wrongful behaviour which society regards as deserving of punishment. People breaching the criminal law are labelled as criminals and are penalised by the state. Given these severe consequences, the criminal law is normally reserved for limited kinds of wrongdoing. The question then becomes one of deciding which types of activity constitute a ‘real crime’ and which warrant lesser kinds of response since they are perceived to be less serious in nature.

Even within this formal legal framework, major questions exist regarding how to define a crime and according to what criteria. The overall aim of criminal law is to prevent certain kinds of behaviour regarded as harmful or potentially harmful. But the purposes of criminal law vary, and involve a constant weighing up of concerns having to do with moral wrongness, individual autonomy, and community welfare (Findlay et al. 199 ). What falls within the ambit of criminal law (and what does not) is a social process that is ongoing and inherently political, since it embodies basic principles and visions of the kind of society one prefers to live in.

In technical legal terms, transnational environmental crime has been defined as follows:

… transnational environmental crime involves the trading and smuggling of plants, animals, resources and pollutants in violation of prohibition or regulation regimes established by multilateral environmental agreements and/or in contravention of domestic law.

(Forni 2010: )

This definition embodies huge complexities of scale, scope and content. For example, the legal framework governing environmental matters in international law is defined by over 270 Multilateral Environmental Agreements and related instruments (Forni 2010: ). The laws and rules guiding action on environmental crime vary greatly at the local, regional and national levels, and there are overarching conventions and laws that likewise have different legal purchase depending upon how they are translated into action in each specific local jurisdiction. In part, differences in law-in-practice and conceptions of what is an environmental crime stem from the shifting nature of what is deemed harmful or not.

A primary task of criminal law is to stipulate the degree of seriousness of criminal conduct. This involves assessing such factors as the physical impact of the conduct on the victim, psychological trauma, the monetary value of property crimes and so on. Those who study crime from a social scientific perspective argue that ‘harm’ is what needs to be measured and assessed, but in doing so the study of crime has to go beyond existing legal definitions and criteria. This is so for several reasons.

First, wrongdoing is perpetrated by states themselves, yet it is the nation state that defines what is criminal, corrupt or unjust. There is a need for the development of criteria and definitions of crime that are not restricted to specific states’ laws but that are more universal in nature (for example, appeal to ‘human rights’ or ‘ecological justice’). Second, harms perpetrated by powerful groups and organisations, such as transnational corporations, are frequently dealt with by the state as civil rather than criminal matters. This reflects the capacity of the powerful to shape laws in ways that do not criminalise their activities, even when they are ecologically disastrous. Third, there are extralegal concepts and factors that need to be studied if we are to fully appreciate the nature of environmental harm, and this requires a different way of framing the issues. An ecology-based analysis of activity may well provide quite a different picture of ‘harm’ than an economic-based analysis. What is defined as criminal harm, and the measure of the seriousness of that harm, is contingent upon the social interests bound up with the definitional process.

What the history of crime and punishment shows is that the defini...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of boxes, figures and tables
• Acknowledgement
• 1. Transnational environmental crime
• 2. Eco-global criminology
• 3. Climate change
• 4. Biodiversity
• 5. Waste and pollution
• 6. Perpetrators
• 7. Environmental victims
• 8. Criminal justice responses
• 9. Transnational activism
• References
• Index