Preventing, Repairing, Punishing: The EU Environmental Crime Directive as a Hybrid Response to Environmental Harm

Abstract

Starting from the principle of criminal legality – nullum crimen, nulla poena sine lege – and from selected environmental cases, this paper examines the difficulties of applying traditional criminal law categories to environmental offences. In environmental harm, causation, mens rea, individual responsibility, and even the identification of harm itself are often opaque. Given this complexity, the paper then addresses contemporary debates, focusing in particular on alternative ways of conceptualizing responsibility and punishment in cases of environmental offences. Finally, it analyses Directive (EU) 2024/1203, to be implemented by Member States by May 2027, arguing that it offers a hybrid model of responsibility, punishment and justice through a combination of individual, corporate and institutional responsibility, of retributive and consequentialist theories of punishment, as well as retributive, restorative, and transformative approaches to justice.