Transnational Environmental Crime

How we interpret and respond to global developments depends upon how we define environmental harm, how we envisage the protection of human, ecological and animal rights, and how we understand the power and interests that underpin recent trends and issues. This book provides a comprehensive introduction to and overview of eco-global criminology. Eco-global criminology refers to a criminological approach that is informed by ecological considerations and by a critical analysis that is global in scale and perspective. Based upon eco-justice conceptions of harm, it focuses on transgressions against environments, non-human species and humans. At the centre of eco-global criminology is analysis of transnational environmental crime. This includes crimes related to pollution (of air, water and land) and crimes against wildlife (including illegal trade in ivory as well as live animals). It also includes those harms that pose threats to the environment more generally (such as global warming).
In addressing these issues, the book deals with topics such as the conceptualisation of environmental crime or harm, the researching of transnational environmental harm, climate change and social conflict, global dimensions of local environmental issues, toxic waste and the transference of harm, prosecution and sentencing of environmental crimes, and environmental victimisation and transnational activism. The bottom line is that, regardless of legal or illegal status, action has to be taken now to prevent harms associated with global warming, the threats to biodiversity, and further pollution and waste generation. The imperative is ecological, not legal, and the outcome, ultimately, is human survival. This book argues that analysis of transnational environmental crime needs to incorporate different notions of harm, and that the overarching perspective of eco-global criminology provides the framework for this.