Offenses against the Environment and Their Prevention: An International Appraisal

While pollutants recognize no jurisdictional boundaries and, therefore, constitute a threat to people everywhere, there has been little effort to utilize criminal sanctions within the framework of international law to control them. A partial explanation for this may be the fact that there is really no effective enforcement mechanism for international criminal law; the United Nations International Criminal Court is still on the drawing board. Certain pollution offenses have become matters of international criminal law by being subjected to universal jurisdiction under national law. However, there are many problems that have inhibited the use of criminal sanctions for protecting the environment on a national level and these carry over into the international level. These include: qualification, quantification, strict liability, vicarious liability, corporate liability, proof, abuse of power, changing priorities, inadequate enforcement, and countervailing penalization policies and trends toward decriminalization. Even a cautious use of the criminal sanction to combat pollution will succeed only if there is a strong public awareness of the problem and a determination to control it; threats to the environment are not yet adequately perceived as posing a problem.