Statement by Rafael Benitez, Director of Social Rights, Health and Environment

Environmental crime knows no borders. Neither should our response.

Environmental crime has become one of the most profitable forms of transnational criminal activity. Illegal wildlife trafficking, unlawful pollution, illegal mining, trafficking in hazardous waste and the illicit exploitation of natural resources generate enormous profits for criminal networks, while imposing devastating costs on people, societies and ecosystems.

These crimes accelerate biodiversity loss, contribute to climate change, undermine sustainable development and fuel corruption and organised crime.

But environmental crime is not only a threat to nature. It is also a direct threat to people, their health, their livelihoods and their fundamental rights.

Environmental degradation contaminates water and soil, destroys livelihoods, undermines food security and disproportionately affects vulnerable communities. Protecting the environment is therefore inseparable from protecting human rights, public health and the rule of law.

Despite growing international awareness, environmental crime too often remains a high-profit, low-risk activity. Fragmented legislation, differences in criminal sanctions, insufficient investigative capacities and difficulties in international cooperation allow criminal networks to exploit gaps between national jurisdictions.

Our challenge is clear: how can we make environmental crime a high-risk, low-reward activity?

A new international legal framework for environmental crime

The Council of Europe has sought to respond to this challenge by developing stronger international legal standards.

At the Fourth Summit of Heads of State and Government in Reykjavík in 2023, European leaders reaffirmed their commitment to strengthening the protection of the environment and addressing the triple planetary crisis of climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss.

This commitment was subsequently translated into the Council of Europe Strategy on the Environment 2025–2030, United around our values, for people and for the planet, which identifies preventing and prosecuting environment-related crime as one of its five strategic objectives.

A major achievement in implementing this commitment was the opening for signature, on 3 December 2025, of the Council of Europe Convention on the Protection of the Environment through Criminal Law (CETS No. 228).

The Convention is the first international legally binding instrument specifically devoted to addressing environmental crime through a comprehensive criminal-law framework.

It establishes common standards for a broad range of environmental offences, including unlawful pollution, waste management, hazardous substances, protected species and habitats, and serious damage to ecosystems.

Importantly, it also addresses particularly serious offences involving widespread, substantial and irreversible or long-lasting environmental damage. These provisions offer a legal response to some of the gravest forms of environmental destruction, including conduct that may be described as ecocide.

The Convention’s contribution, however, goes considerably beyond the definition of criminal offences.

It introduces provisions on the liability of legal persons, effective and dissuasive sanctions, aggravating circumstances and measures to strengthen investigations and prosecutions. This is particularly important in a field where environmental offences may involve complex corporate structures, cross-border operations and sophisticated criminal networks.

The Convention also places strong emphasis on prevention. It encourages States to develop comprehensive national strategies, strengthen institutional capacities, provide specialised training and improve coordination between environmental authorities, law enforcement agencies, prosecutors and the judiciary.

These measures respond to a fundamental challenge: environmental crime cannot be effectively addressed through criminal legislation alone. It requires the capacity to detect offences, gather evidence, identify those responsible, trace criminal proceeds and bring offenders to justice.

Putting victims and human rights at the centre

One of the Convention’s most significant contributions is its human-centred approach.

Environmental crime is sometimes perceived as a crime without victims. In reality, its consequences can be devastating for individuals and communities.

The Convention recognises this reality by strengthening the position of victims in criminal investigations and proceedings and providing for the protection of witnesses and persons who report offences or cooperate with justice.

Its provisions also recognise the important role that civil society organisations can play in environmental justice, including through participation in proceedings in accordance with national law.

This reflects a broader evolution in our understanding of environmental protection: environmental justice is not only about prosecuting offenders, but also about protecting people, ensuring accountability and safeguarding the conditions necessary for the enjoyment of human rights.

The Convention therefore contributes directly to the Council of Europe’s broader work on the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment and reinforces the links between environmental protection, human rights and the rule of law.

Strengthening the global response through the United Nations

Environmental crime is inherently transnational. Criminal networks operate across borders, exploit differences between legal systems and take advantage of weaknesses in international cooperation.

This makes the relationship between the Council of Europe Convention and the United Nations framework particularly important.

The United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (UNTOC) provides an essential framework for international cooperation against organised criminal networks, including through extradition, mutual legal assistance and law enforcement cooperation.

The Council of Europe Convention complements this framework by establishing detailed criminal-law standards specifically addressing environmental offences, together with provisions on prevention, prosecution, sanctions and the protection of victims.

This complementarity is not merely conceptual. It is expressly reflected in the Convention itself.

Article 40 provides for extensive international cooperation in criminal matters, including investigations, prosecutions, freezing, seizure and confiscation of criminal proceeds, and the protection of witnesses and persons cooperating with justice.

It also provides that, under specified conditions, Parties may use the Convention as a legal basis for extradition or mutual legal assistance where no other applicable treaty exists, drawing explicitly on Articles 16 and 18 of UNTOC.

This creates a practical bridge between the two legal frameworks.

The Council of Europe Convention also provides for the possibility of transmitting information spontaneously between Parties, helping authorities identify offences and facilitate investigations across borders.

These provisions demonstrate how international instruments can reinforce one another and contribute to a more effective response to transnational environmental crime.

The Convention is also relevant to ongoing discussions within the United Nations on strengthening the international legal framework for crimes that affect the environment, including consideration of a possible additional protocol to UNTOC.

The Council of Europe Convention and a possible future UN instrument should be seen as complementary and mutually reinforcing.

The new Convention provides an existing set of legal standards and practical mechanisms that can inform international discussions, while a future UN instrument could further strengthen global cooperation within the framework of UNTOC.

The objective should be to build coherence, avoid unnecessary duplication and ensure that different international instruments contribute to a common goal: more effective prevention, investigation and prosecution of environmental crime.

In this context, the work of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) is particularly important.

UNODC’s expertise in transnational organised crime, criminal justice cooperation, capacity-building and technical assistance provides valuable opportunities for supporting the implementation of international standards on environmental crime.

The work of the Intergovernmental Expert Group on Crimes that Affect the Environment is also central to identifying gaps in the international framework and exploring possible responses.

Our partnership with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is equally important.

By bringing together the Council of Europe’s expertise in human rights, the rule of law and criminal justice with UNEP’s global environmental mandate, we can strengthen the connections between environmental governance and criminal-law enforcement.

This cooperation is particularly valuable in ensuring that criminal justice responses contribute to broader environmental objectives, including biodiversity conservation, pollution prevention and the protection of ecosystems.

The Council of Europe and UNEP have concluded an agreement to promote the new Council of Europe Convention globally.

Building coherence with European Union legislation and other international instruments

The European Union is another essential partner in strengthening the response to environmental crime.

The revised EU Environmental Crime Directive (Directive (EU) 2024/1203) and the Council of Europe Convention share important objectives: improving the criminalisation of serious environmental offences, strengthening enforcement, enhancing corporate accountability and ensuring effective and dissuasive sanctions.

Their complementarity provides an opportunity to reinforce legal coherence within Europe while extending common standards beyond the European Union.

The European Union’s participation in the Convention would further strengthen these synergies and contribute to a coordinated response across the wider European and international legal space.

The Convention also complements other international environmental agreements, including the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), the Basel Convention on hazardous wastes and the Convention on Biological Diversity.

These instruments establish important environmental obligations and frameworks for international cooperation. The Council of Europe Convention adds a criminal-law dimension by strengthening the tools available to States to respond to serious unlawful conduct affecting the environment.

This is particularly relevant to biodiversity protection, where illegal exploitation and trafficking in protected species can undermine conservation efforts and threaten the survival of ecosystems.

The Council of Europe’s own Bern Convention on the Conservation of European Wildlife and Natural Habitats also illustrates the importance of connecting biodiversity conservation with effective legal enforcement.

The aim is not to create parallel or competing international frameworks, but to strengthen the connections between environmental commitments, criminal justice and international cooperation.

From legal commitments to practical implementation

The adoption of international standards is an essential step, but it is only the beginning.

The real success of the new Convention will be measured by its implementation and its impact on the ground.

This requires translating legal commitments into concrete national measures: modernising criminal legislation, strengthening investigative and prosecutorial capacities, improving access to environmental expertise, enhancing information-sharing and ensuring effective international cooperation.

It also requires addressing the financial dimensions of environmental crime.

Criminal networks must not be allowed to retain the profits of environmental destruction. Identifying, tracing, freezing and confiscating illicit proceeds must become an integral part of the response.

Specialised training and cooperation between environmental inspectors, police, customs authorities, financial investigators, prosecutors and judges are equally essential.

Environmental crime often involves complex scientific evidence, sophisticated financial arrangements and activities spanning several jurisdictions. Effective enforcement therefore depends on multidisciplinary expertise and close institutional cooperation.

Civil society also has an indispensable role to play.

Environmental organisations, local communities and human rights defenders can contribute to the detection of offences, the documentation of environmental harm, the protection of victims and the monitoring of implementation.

Their expertise and engagement are essential to ensuring that legal frameworks produce meaningful results.

The Convention’s implementation and monitoring mechanisms can provide an important platform for exchanging good practices, identifying challenges and supporting continuous improvements in national responses.

The fact that the Convention is open to countries beyond Europe gives it particular significance. It offers an opportunity to promote common standards and stronger cooperation across regions, recognising that environmental crime is a global challenge requiring a global response.

A shared responsibility for people and the planet

The international community increasingly recognises that environmental crime is not a secondary environmental concern.

It is a major challenge for criminal justice, public health, sustainable development, human rights and the rule of law.

The new Council of Europe Convention offers a concrete contribution to addressing this challenge.

It strengthens criminal-law standards, reinforces accountability, places victims at the centre of the response and creates new opportunities for international cooperation.

Its value also lies in its capacity to complement existing instruments, particularly UNTOC, the work of UNODC and UNEP, European Union legislation and international environmental agreements.

The objective must now be to transform these opportunities into operational cooperation, capacity-building and effective enforcement.

We must move from commitments to implementation, from fragmented approaches to coordinated action, and from international cooperation on paper to tangible results.

This requires sustained political commitment, stronger partnerships and a shared determination to ensure that environmental crime no longer remains a profitable activity with limited consequences.

The Council of Europe stands ready to work with the United Nations, the European Union, national authorities and civil society to advance this common agenda and promote the widest possible participation in the new Convention.

Because fighting environmental crime is about much more than protecting nature.

It is about defending the rule of law, protecting human health and human rights, safeguarding biodiversity and preserving the natural heritage that we have a responsibility to pass on to future generations.

Environmental crime knows no borders. Our determination to combat it must be equally global.