National or Jurisdictional Tools - SANCTIONS: Whether these are civil or criminal (penal) in nature they are imposed under the law of the country or jurisdiction, not under the authority of an international treaty or institution.

Confiscation - All countries allow seizure and retention by their Customs authority of items deemed illegally entering their jurisdiction. While this represents a financial loss, both in terms of what it cost to obtain and bring it to that point, and in terms of any subsequent loss of profit that might have been earned, confiscation or forfeiture represents the minimum sanction. It means one ‘trading attempt’ failed, it leaves the organisers free to try again and their organisation intact. It does not remove the profits earned from a ‘criminal lifestyle or enterprise’ of past illegal trading. It makes no provision for compensation of any sort to be made for the ecological damage that the specimens in question represent. The non-imposition of any other sanction that could have been imposed and to which the illegal act rendered the perpetrator liable sends a signal that the offence and activity is seen as of low seriousness. It represents only a low ‘social condemnation’ of the act.

Ecological reparation or compensation – Some jurisdictions incorporate into their sanctions regime a fixed amount, varied according to the ‘conservation status’ of the species involved, which may go directly into conservation activity, which reflects, notionally at least, the ‘damage done’ by the offence. This will be additional to a fine or financial imposition which the legislation states may be levied as a penalty and paid to the state.

‘Stop’ and ‘Reinstatement Orders’ - Sometimes imposed under what are known as ‘civil sanctions’, these allow a civil order, which may be backed up by a criminal penalty if breached or not complied with, to prevent environmental damage or to compel the rectification of it by returning a habitat to its former condition at the expense of the perpetrator. These are usually imposed as an alternative to a prosecution.

‘Civil Sanctions or ‘Administrative Penalties’ – The idea of these has been developed by a number of academics, eg. Professor Michael Faure of Maastricht University and Professor Richard Macrory of the Centre for Law and the Environment, University College, London. The basic thesis is that businesses are tempted to depart from environmental standards and avoid the costs of compliance if the use of prosecution and criminal penalties is sufficiently infrequent and the risks of getting caught are too low. It may be a better use of public funds to impose more modest financial penalties coupled with ‘management’, ‘stop’ or ‘reinstatement’ orders more frequently, as it may be more of a deterrent. Their aim is simply to change behaviour and remove any financial gain. These are imposed by a government agency or regulator swiftly and as an alternative to the delay and costs of a full-scale police investigation and judicial hearing. The criminal law is still to be applied, but reserved for the more serious offences and more damaging incidents and reinforce the effectiveness of the lesser sanctions imposed by the regulator, as well as providing ‘a social disapproval of a qualitatively different nature’. Many European jurisdictions include the option for the imposition of set administrative financial penalties alongside their provision for criminal or penal penalties, some still have these as the only method for some wildlife crime.

Orders directed at companies or ‘legal persons’ – There is some evidence for an increasing willingness to use sanctions aimed at the structure, finances and trading ability of businesses in cases of illegal trading. Eg. Legislation in France provides for: dissolution of the company, periodic or permanent bans on exercising specified professional activities, closure of offices/premises where offences were committed, disqualification for specified types of state aid.

Imprisonment, deprivation of liberty, restrictions on liberty and fines – These are the traditional area for criminal or penal sanctions. Over the last decade there has been a marked upward trend in the maximum fine and prison terms for wildlife offences, particularly illegal trading, in national legislation and recently some provision is made specifically for incidents to be deemed ‘serious organised crime’.