Centenial Celebration

Transaction Search Form: please type in any of the fields below.

Date: April 29, 2024 Mon

Time: 9:55 pm

Results for offenses against the environment (asia - pacific r

1 results found

Author: Elliott, Lorraine, ed.

Title: Transnational Environmental Crime in the Asia-Pacific: A Workshop Report

Summary: Transnational environmental crime (TEC) includes a range of activities: illegal logging and timber smuggling, wildlife smuggling, illegal fishing, the black market in Ozone Depleting Substances (ODS), the illegal movement of prohibited or regulated chemicals and hazardous and toxic wastes and, potentially, an illegal market in genetically modified organisms and illicitly obtained genetic material. Globally, the scale of transnational environmental crime has been estimated to be a black market similar in value to that of drugs or arms. The transnational dimension of this broad range of activities arises because the goods or commodities are sourced illegally and then smuggled across borders, or because they are traded in contravention of international conventions such as the Montreal Protocol (on substances that deplete the ozone layer) or CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) or the Basel Convention on the Transboundary Movement of Hazardous Wastes, or because the profits and/or perpetrators move across borders. Some commodities are laundered into the licit economy whereas others remain in the shadow illicit economy. The ‘chain of custody’ crimes associated with environmental smuggling range from small scale opportunistic activity through to systematic and large-scale organized crime that involves money laundering and corruption, parallel trading and the exchange of illegal environmental goods for other forms of illicit commodities. In the Asia Pacific, as the short papers in this workshop report attest, these are serious problems with consequences for environmental degradation and sustainable development, good governance, security, the legitimacy of legal institutions, national economies, markets, civil society and local communities. These are not, of course, simply problems ‘out there’ and we should not fall into the trap of reducing these to ‘developing country’ problems. Developed countries generate demand and provide markets for illegal environmental resources. The profits of illegal environmental goods are sometimes laundered through developed countries, facilitated by criminal groups and otherwise legitimate actors in those countries. Yet while other forms of transnational crime such as drugs smuggling, arms trafficking, people smuggling and terrorism have attracted considerable public and policy attention, TEC has been paid much less attention by academics and policy-makers alike even though it generates similar kinds of policy challenges. There is an extensive body of work within the environmental literature on individual types of illegality but little done on developing a more comprehensive global governance or international relations approach to this category of illegal transnational and global activity.2 The public Forum and round-table Workshop whose results are reported here were intended in part as a corrective to this. Rather than re-establishing the narratives about particular problems, the focus in the papers and in discussions was on policy responses. A number of important issues informed that discussion: • where should intervention be directed – prevention, interdiction, enforcement, punishment? • what do we need to manage these interventions – is this a matter of more resources and effective capacity? Or do we face broader problems of policy incoherence? • what lessons can we learn from existing policy responses in the region?

Details: Canberra: Department of International Relations, RSPAS, The Australian National University, 2007. 87p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed September 25, 2012 at: http://ips.cap.anu.edu.au/ir/tec/publications/Transnational_environmental_crime_Asia_Pacific_workshop_report_TEC_Workshop_Report_2007.pdf

Year: 2007

Country: Asia

URL: http://ips.cap.anu.edu.au/ir/tec/publications/Transnational_environmental_crime_Asia_Pacific_workshop_report_TEC_Workshop_Report_2007.pdf

Shelf Number: 126444

Keywords:
Hazardous Wastes
Illegal Fishing
Illegal Logging
Natural Resources
Offenses Against the Environment (Asia - Pacific R
Wildlife Smuggling