Posted on April, 13 2015

During a side event at the UN Crime Congress in Doha, WWF and the Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime launched a new report looking at the major gaps in the global legal architecture, which are hampering the international response to transnational organized environmental crime.

"Tightening the Net: Towards a Global Legal Framework on Transnational Organized Environmental Crime" analyses the international legal frameworks that are available to combat this type of organized crime and explores potential ways to strengthen the current situation. And improvements are needed because existing legal tools are a loose set of international, national and local laws that often fail to work together efficiently, while inconsistencies create havens for organized criminal groups.
 
In addition, international treaties still fail to address environmental crime as a form of transnational organized crime at all. Instead, they focus on either conservation or international trade aspects.

These critical issues were all debated during the event, which included presentations from TRAFFIC, the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) and the Black Fish that demonstrated the level of transnational organized criminality in the environmental sector. And illustrated how these enterprise crimes – whether perpetuated by criminal networks as a business, or by business as a criminal practice – are undermining international, regional and domestic regulatory frameworks and response mechanisms designed to ensure the sustainability of terrestrial and marine environments: two of the proposed goals in the new post-2015 Sustainable Development agenda, which is the key theme of the Crime Congress.
 
The growing attention that is being paid to the trafficking of certain wildlife species is not being extended to other forms of environmental crime, such as fisheries crime, and the trafficking of ozone depleting substances and e-waste, despite the significant damage they cause. Furthermore, increased discussion and understanding of these issues is arguably not being translated into demonstrable successes in preventing continued criminality and the associated negative consequences on social and economic development, good governance, human rights and the rule of law.
 
The WWF and Global Initiative study found that there is currently no overarching legal instrument that encompasses these types of crime under a single criminal law framework. This provides little scope for international intervention in cases where capacity or political will is lacking, or where states are actively non-compliant.
 
One of the key conclusions in the report, which was echoed during the presentations, is that responses are fragmented and implemented within silos. This patchwork approach has prevented critical lessons from being learned, and hindered the design of coherent and robust responses.
 
Participants at the event, including representatives from governments, inter-governmental bodies and civil society organisations, all recognized the seriousness and commonalities of the problem and the need for action as well as the need for constructive engagement with a broad base of relevant actors for informed and open dialogue and for a proportionate and appropriate response.
 
The Global Initiative, WWF, the Black Fish, EIA and TRAFFIC also urged Member States and the Congress to consider avenues for an open, cross-sectoral dialogue process to generate options for a global legal response to transnational organized environmental crime.  
 
And there has certainly been a considerable focus on environmental crime at the Congress. Both the UN Secretary General and the President of the UN General Assembly referred to the seriousness of wildlife crime in their opening remarks, while a high-level event was held on the theme of ‘Wildlife and forest crime: A serious crime’.
 
At that event, Ida Tillisch, Director General of the Emirates Wildlife Society, World Wildlife Fund United Arab Emirates Office (EWS-WWF UAE) stressed that progress was being made, even if there is still a long way to go until transnational organized environmental crime gets the attention it deserves.
 
“It seems inconceivable that 20 years ago there was no overarching global framework to address human trafficking. Today, human trafficking is universally recognised as a serious crime. We are a long way away from this stage in our conversation on transnational organized environmental crime, but we are moving forwards,” said Tillisch.

She urged to participants to “dare challenge themselves to take this conversation towards a future when it will seem inconceivable that transnational organised environmental crimes were not universally recognised as serious crimes” and called on them to ensure that this 60th anniversary Crime Congress is remembered for the “depth of your vision to address wildlife, forest and fisheries crime”.

And she encouraged States Parties to leave the Congress committed to supporting on-going efforts to adopt a UN General Assembly resolution on wildlife crime, including forests and fisheries crime, before the end of this year.