Environmental Regulation: Effective or Defective? Assessing whether criminal sanctions provide adequate protection of the environment

Authors

Emma Bethell

Document Type

Article

Abstract

Issues, such as climate change and global warming, have seen environmental protection grow in the global consciousness into something worthy and in need of regulation. In response, a number of laws have been enacted which make certain environmental actions criminal offences, enforced through the criminal justice system. These environmental crimes are enforced using the same mechanisms and must satisfy the same procedural safeguards as 'traditional' criminal offences in order to secure conviction. This discussion looks at elements of the current system and whether it provides an effective system for protecting the environment. An examination of the alternatives is also made to establish if different enforcement mechanisms would facilitate better environmental regulation.

Publication Date

2009-01-01

Publication Title

The Plymouth Law & Criminal Justice Review

Volume

2

Issue

1

First Page

1

Last Page

25

ISSN

2054-149X

Deposit Date

March 2017

Embargo Period

2024-11-01

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Recommended Citation

Bethell, Emma (2009) "Environmental Regulation: Effective or Defective? Assessing whether criminal sanctions provide adequate protection of the environment," The Plymouth Law and Criminal Justice Review: Vol. 2, Article 3.
Available at: https://pearl.plymouth.ac.uk/plcjr/vol2/iss1/3