Ship-Source Marine Pollution: The ECJ Judgements and their Impact on Criminal Law

In 2002, following the shipwreck of the tanker 'Prestige" and the critical environmental and economic issues it caused, the institutions of the European Union (EU) opted to most deeply express their willingness and determination to vigorously prevent and address similar future damage. To this end, the almost concurrent drafting of a Directive Proposal and a Framework Decision Proposal was launched, finally to be adopted in the summer of 2005, despite the strong reactions prompted both by leading shipping companies and by Member States that associate significant economic interests with maritime transportation activities. Soon thereafter, however, the validity of both the Directive and the Framework Decision was disputed by causes of legal actions brought before the European Court of Justice (ECJ). The Court ruled on the validity of the Framework Decision in October 2007, and on the validity of the Directive in June 2008, issuing two judgments that are of utmost importance to criminal law. This paper aims to present the impact that these two judgments have on the domestic criminal law of the Member States, which will soon have to incorporate the Directive 2005/35/ EC, as it will be amended, to their domestic legislations. For this purpose, after the presentation of the content of the Directive and the Framework Decision and the reference to the legal framework developed by the ECJ with its decision of 13 September 2005 on the protection of the environment, the ECJ judgments of 23 October 2007 and 03 June 2008 are analysed and the legislative framework, as seems to be formulated after the annulment of Framework Decision 2005/667/JHA and the Proposal to amend Directive 2005/35/EC, is described. Adapted from the source document.