Statement by the Chair, Mr Šimon PEPŘÍK (the Czech Republic)

The Council of Europe launches its work on the elaboration of the new Convention on the Protection of the Environment through Criminal Law. This important mission represents our commitment to the protection of the environment at a time when it is most needed.

This is a decisive moment for the environmental challenge we all face. Environmental crime has evolved taking on a systemic and global dimension, causing massive material and immaterial losses for societies. It is particularly aggravated through its additional cost to future generations.

Several lines of action are needed to promote the protection of the environment and to combat the climate crisis. It is necessary to work on this matter from several fronts, and criminal law proves to be an essential asset in this regard.

Clearly, criminal law is not the only tool we need for the protection of the environment. However, it’s one of the most important legal tools for this objective, thanks to its punitive and preventive functions. And the Council of Europe is strategically placed to lead this effort.

Many Council of Europe Conventions on criminal matters contain dispositions allowing non-member States to accede to it. Therefore, the new Convention, elaborated in the pan-European framework of the Council of Europe, may have a much broader reach that surpasses its borders.

This Convention will provide a common framework establishing minimum standards on the fight against environmental crime and providing States with better mechanisms for international co-operation.

Such co-operation may take several forms, allowing States to better prevent, combat and investigate environmental crime, or even facilitate the seizure and confiscation of its instruments and products, thus helping to return millions of euros to public administrations.

That is why this new Convention, like other Council of Europe criminal law Conventions, must aim to facilitate co-operation between States in order to prevent and combat criminal activities. The PC-ENV will seek to use this framework to achieve this objective.

This is especially relevant when considering the growing transnational nature of environmental crime, a kind of criminality that knows no borders because of the very nature of the Earth System, which is interconnected in all its cycles, processes and elements.

The new Convention will be a legally binding instrument and will contribute to better fight climate change and pollution, protect biodiversity and ecosystems. It will help to promote access to clean air and water, food security, health and wellbeing – and will be an important asset for the national authorities in this endeavour.

This work will thus reinforce our unwavering commitment to our values of democracy, human rights and the rule of law.