Globalisation - Enviromental Crime

• Green criminology often ignored in criminology

• Zahn (1992)
• Deforestation of the Brazilian rain forests tripled between 1980 and 1995
• Pollution of rivers and oceans is causing global mass extinctions
• Particulate pollution annually kills 100,000 people in the USA - four times that of homicide
• Poll conducted in 1990 - majority of Americans consider environmental crime to be a more serious offense than heroin smuggling - yet only 4% of existing criminology programs in the USA give and environmental crime course

• Environmental crime = an unauthorized act or omission that violates the law and is therefore subject to criminal prosecution and criminal sanctions (Situ and Emmons, 2000)

• Three Elements -
• 1) Violation of existing environmental laws
• 2)  Two victims – people and the environment
• 3) Corporate (the majority) but also individual, organized crime and governmental offenders

Carabinne et al (2009)

Primary green crime: air pollution, deforestation, species decline and animal rights, water pollution

Secondary green crime: 

• Two major categories

• 1) Wildlife crime
•  poaching, trafficking, possession of protected plants or animals
•  lucrative for one reason - demand 

• 2) Pollution crime
•  illegal handling, transport, trading, and disposal of hazardous wastes. •
• pillaging and degradation of land and communities •
• ecological damage

White (2008)

Environmental rights and environmental justice: sees environmental rights as an extension of human or social rights - aim is to improve quality of human life - "intergenerational responsibility" toward future generations 

Ecological citizenship and ecological justice: sees humans as 1 part of a complex system which should be preserved for its own sake - works on a global level - defines environmental harm in relation to ecological harm - focusing on the destructive capabilities of humans

Animal rights and species justice: focus on anti-discrimination, see non-humans as having rights too - humans have duty of care - focuses on animal abuse 

• Can be deliberate, accidental or unintended e.g. pollution – including "upset" events: equipment breakdowns, malfunctions, and other non-routine occurrences
• Disposal of toxic waste – illegal dumping and permit breaches
• Misuse of environmental resources
• Damage to local communities
• Poor environmental practices 

• CSR = Corporate Social Responsibility

Harris (2011) Corporations may adopt CSR/CER for a variety of reasons

• Acting ethically is the right way for the company to behave
• Doing what is right and fair is expected of an organisation
• Acting ethically is in the organisation’s best interest

• Greenpeace (n.d) - “the act of misleading consumers regarding the environmental practices of a company or the environmental benefits of a product or service”

• (Misuse of) Constructive compliance – e.g. Sustainability reporting as a tool to appear compliant with regulation

• Creative Compliance - Circumventing and undermining legal regulation through corporate environmental reporting

Numerous ways practices can fail

• Difference of opinion between stakeholders and the corporation about what is required
• Corporate culture that prizes success over compliance
• The value of profit and minimizing costs over compliance
• Poor enforcement and inadequate penalties for noncompliance

• Official estimates suggest 4.1 million barrels of oil spilled in the Gulf of Mexico Deepwater Horizon disaster
• Estimates suggest 9 to 11 million barrels spilled in the Niger Delta in the 50 years of oil production
• Independent estimates suggest at least 115,000 barrels (15,000 tons) spilled on average each year making the Niger Delta one of the most oil-impacted ecosystems in the world

• Decades of oil exploration in the Niger Delta - resulted in pollution of much of the region’s vegetation, fishponds and drinking water

Problems include:

• oil spills and gas flaring
• contamination of the local environment and resultant impact on fishing and livelihoods inadequate clean-up  
• lowering of life expectancy (now under 50 years in Ogoniland)

• Globalisation because: clear that environmental dangers are no respecters of national boundaries e.g. climate change affects everyone
• Risk because: in modern world there are hosts of "risk" - people who are affecting the climate - product of human technological developments

• Beck (1992) advances in knowledge and the creation of new technologies that were once used to improve and maintain our futures are now also a considerable threat to our well-being
• Beck distinguishes between external risk - associated with nature" - e.g. infectious                                                  1) external risk - associated with nature" - e.g. infectious diseases, poor harvests, floods etc                                                                                                                                                                          2) manufactured risks - created by the impact of our developing knowledge on the world - consequences of human actions include new sources of risk and uncertainty - e.g. pollution, nuclear power etc.

• "External risks" less threatening than "manufactured risks"

Halsey and White (1998) identify 3 primary concepts of the relationship between humans and their environment

1) anthropocentrism - a perspective that emphasises the importance of humans over all other living things - assumes that the environment is there to serve human needs - LINKS TO ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE

2) biocentrism - all living creatures are of equal worth - humans therefore should be concerned with the ways in which environmental resource are utilised and affect all species - LINKS TO ECOLOGICAL JUSTICE

3) ecocentrism - all species and the rest of the natural world involved in a complex interdependent system - environmental sustainability as important as human survival and the survival of other species - LINKS TO SPECIES JUSTICE

• illegal harvesting of timber 
• illegal transportation of timber and other materials
• illegal export and import of goods
• Brazilian Amazon - by 2001 about 20% of the total forest area had been cleared
• Boekhout van Solinge (2010) - conflicts and human right violations are common in the Brazilian amazon - all kinds of crimes are connected to deforestation - Brazilian amazon is vast area with low population - low government presence - low surveillance - low levels of law enforcement
• dramatic impact on climate change - working conditions similar to slavery - very significant effects on huge numbers of animal and plant species