EU Action Plan against Wildlife Trafficking – Recent Belgian Criminal Cases

IF 1.2 Q1 LAW
Farah Bouquelle, L. Lavrysen
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引用次数: 9

Abstract

The article introduces international, European and Belgian legislation on trade in endangered species of wild animals and plants and discusses the EU Action Plan against Wildlife Trafficking. Notably, this contribution provides empirical insights in the functioning of the Belgian system for enforcement of wildlife trafficking regulations and provides a first set of empirical data on the effectiveness of criminal charges in this field of EU environmental law. To this extent, the four reviewed Belgian judgments are examples of effective criminal sanctioning of wildlife crime. They also show that wildlife crime is hot and organised, and that Belgium is both a final destination market for live birds and reptiles and a transit point for trafficking of ivory and sea horses to other continents, such as Asia. To meet the targets of the EU Action Plan against Wildlife Trafficking, the fight against wild life trafficking should be stepped up. As regards Belgium, this manuscript highlights that the federal state and the three regions should better coordinate their CITES policy and legislation. In view of the increase of CITES-cases, the training and capacity of the inspection, customs and police services should be strengthened further. More frequent controls at the airports and ports would increase the chance of being caught. The environmental unit of the federal police should be reinforced. Moreover, a federal CITES public prosecutor could be appointed for serious CITES cases in which there are links with terrorism and organised crime. More research capacity and international cooperation would allow to tackle not only the couriers, but the principals and addressees in the countries of origin and destination. Finally, the assignment of CITES cases to specialised sections of the courts would contribute to more efficiency and better continuity in the interpretation and enforcement of CITES regulations.
欧盟打击野生动物贩运行动计划——比利时最近的刑事案件
文章介绍了国际、欧洲和比利时关于濒危野生动植物贸易的立法,并讨论了欧盟打击野生动物贩运行动计划。值得注意的是,这一贡献为比利时野生动物贩运法规执行系统的运作提供了经验见解,并提供了关于欧盟环境法这一领域刑事指控有效性的第一组经验数据。从这个意义上说,经过审查的比利时四项判决是对野生动物犯罪进行有效刑事制裁的例子。它们还表明,野生动物犯罪是热点和有组织的,比利时既是活鸟类和爬行动物的最终目的地市场,也是向亚洲等其他大陆贩运象牙和海马的中转站。为了实现《欧盟打击野生动物贩运行动计划》的目标,应加大打击野生动物贩卖的力度。关于比利时,这份手稿强调,联邦州和三个地区应该更好地协调其CITES政策和立法。鉴于《濒危物种公约》案件的增加,应进一步加强检查、海关和警察部门的培训和能力。机场和港口更频繁的管制会增加被抓住的机会。联邦警察的环保部门应该得到加强。此外,对于与恐怖主义和有组织犯罪有关的严重CITES案件,可以任命一名联邦CITES检察官。更多的研究能力和国际合作不仅可以解决快递员的问题,还可以解决原籍国和目的地国的负责人和收件人的问题。最后,将《濒危野生动植物种国际贸易公约》的案件分配给法院的专门部门,将有助于提高解释和执行《濒危野生动物种国际贸易条约》条例的效率和更好的连续性。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
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来源期刊
CiteScore
2.30
自引率
16.70%
发文量
19
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