BREADCRUMB
Investigation, prosecutions and adjudication of waste crime
Challenges and Good practices in prosecuting waste crimesa - Best practice and possible solutions
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Involvement of Eurojust
Resulting from the inherently cross-border nature of illegal waste trafficking there might be a number of added values in including Eurojust in the investigations. From the simple speeding up of requests for mutual legal assistance, advice on which could be coordinated and facilitated by Eurojust, to the organisation of coordination centres for action days with simultaneous house searches and arrests taking place in several Member States.
Also, Eurojust’s network of contact points in third countries could be of great interest to practitioners. A pragmatic step could also be the setting up and maintenance of a list of contact points in the Member States for practitioners in the field to quickly contact an expert from another Member State and to facilitate a first exchange of views. This list of contact points could focus on expertise relating to environmental crime in general or on one of the specific areas.
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Joint investigation teams and other cooperation tools
The report also found that the establishment of joint investigations teams (JITs) concerning environmental crimes is not yet very well developed. Given the advantages of JITs, in particular in allowing competent authorities to exchange information in a quick and simplified manner, this instrument could be of great help to enhance judicial cooperation in such cases and might allow for broader prosecution. JITs would also allow the participation and contribution of necessary experts.
Member States are neither necessarily using other possible cooperation tools, such as coordination meetings and coordination centres at EU level.
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Exchange of case law and best practice
There is need for an exchange of relevant national case law among practitioners in these fields.
To this end, a particularly useful tool is the IMPEL Transfrontier Waste Shipment Task Force which is a database of case law on environmental crime, with a special focus on transfrontier shipment of waste and the enforcement by the Member States of Regulation 1013/2006. The database comprises a collection of national judgments submitted by the prosecutors participating in the IMPEL network. The full text of each judgment is available in its original language, accompanied by a short summary in English provided by the submitting Member State (names of defendants will be omitted).
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