Enhanced information and intelligence collection, evaluation and sharing were identified as key areas for law enforcement to more effectively combat illegal logging, the illicit trade in timber and other forestry crime across the Asia-Pacific region during an INTERPOL training course.

The week-long (29 April – 3 May) course was organized under the auspices of INTERPOL’s Project Leaf (Law Enforcement Assistance for Forests), which provides support and capacity building for forestry compliance and security in order to combat illegal logging and deforestation.

Specialist officers from seven countries – China, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Myanmar, Papua New Guinea, and Philippines – underwent training in a range of skills, and were also updated on the latest methods on combating forestry crimes. This included a presentation by the Remote Sensing Technology Centre of Japan on the use of satellite imaging to identify unlawful land clearing.

For the full press release, see the Environmental Crime Programme’s website.

 Effective Enforcement and Compliance Strategies for Climate Laws

The International Network for Environmental Compliance and Enforcement (INECE) is soliciting abstracts for the upcoming Special Report: Practical Strategies to Assure Compliance with Climate Laws. 

This Special Report will present case studies and examples of good practices that highlight the critical importance of compliance with national laws and policies as part of an effective governance strategy to meet climate change mitigation objectives.

The INECE Special Report will give preference to practical case studies and recommendations for tools that can assist compliance and enforcement practitioners. Examples of pragmatic reforms and other policy development related to compliance and enforcement are also welcome.

View a printable version of the call for contributions here.

Update (4/16): Download the Special Report Paper Submission Guidelines.

National and Local Enforcement

• Carbon Markets: A collection of practical case examples of:
  • enforcement actions taken by governments to assure integrity and delivery of climate benefits through market mechanisms;
  • overcoming challenges with regards to monitoring emissions from specific sectors and particular approaches that have been successful in specific sectors; or
  • monitoring, reporting and verification for large installations and stationary sources as well as carbon offset projects.
• Renewable Fuel Mandates: Examples of responses to fraud in regulatory fuel markets, for instance, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s plan for a quality assurance program.
• Effective Prosecution: Examples of challenges faced by prosecutors seeking to enforce climate-change related laws and regulations and tools used to overcome them, and discussion of how a prosecutor’s network could assist in addressing these challenges.
• Penalties and Sanctions: Examples of penalties and sanctions that have assisted enforcement and produced compliance with climate change-related laws.
• Short Lived Climate Pollutants: Practical case examples of strategies used to ensure full compliance with existing national laws to control Short-lived Climate Pollutants (SLCPs).
• Climate Considerations for Environmental Impact Assessments: Examples of enforcement of requirements to consider climatic factors in environmental impact assessments.
• Energy Efficiency: Case studies and examples of enforcing requirements for energy efficient appliances and energy use in buildings, for instance, auditing self-certifications under the CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme in the United Kingdom.
• Motor Vehicles: Examples of effective methods for enforcing fuel economy and greenhouse gas emission standards for passenger cars, trucks and buses.
• Unconventional Gas Extraction: Examples of enforcement of laws governing unconventional gas extraction (a.k.a. hydraulic fracturing), including regulations designed to curtail fugitive methane emissions and ground water contamination
• Other Relevant Topics and Emerging Issues

Global Governance

• Forests Carbon Offsets and Management: Practical case examples related to integrity of forest carbon credits or Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD).
• Ozone Depleting Substances: Guidance on preventing, detecting and deterring the illegal trade in ODS and effective enforcement practices at both international and state levels.
• Marine Environment: From international and state perspectives, strategies to enforce reductions of emissions from ocean-going vessels, including best practices for seaports around the world to control emissions at port.
• Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions: Examples of transparent and effective implementation of measurement, reporting, and verification requirements of Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMAs), with consideration of enforcement of national legislation as indicator of accountability at the international level.
• Green Climate Fund: Analysis of governance provisions outlined in the Fund’s operating protocols, in particular as related to accountability and transparency.

Abstracts of 150-250 words should be sent to Elise Stull at estull at inece.org by 15 March 2013 and will be reviewed by an editorial committee. For accepted submissions, final manuscripts will be due by 15 May 2013. Case examples should be short in length (500 words or less). Other articles should be concise, 750-1,000 words in length. The Special Report will be digitally published in the summer of 2013.

Under RA 9003, LGUs were mandated to close open dumps within 18 months from the effective date of the law, which seeks to protect groundwater, aquifers, reservoirs and watersheds from contamination brought by garbage leachate.   Besides administrative charges, non-compliant local officials face a penalty of P50,000 (US$1,290).

According to the Sun Star, Deputy Ombudsman for Luzon Gerard Mosquera said the program tackles the problem of inaction or indifference.

“Letters shall be sent to randomly selected national agencies and local government units to request information on their compliance with the provisions of RA 9003, which data shall be gathered and evaluated by a technical working group composed of representatives from the Environmental Ombudsman team and civic organizations,” he said.

The article notes praise for the initiative from environmental lawyer Antonio Oposa Jr., who recognized the importance of this decision. “The most basic element of character and nation-building is discipline,” said Oposa in the article. “The most basic form of discipline is cleanliness. With this move, perhaps all local officials will now sit up, listen and finally take action.”

For the full article, see the Sun Star Cebu.

The Bulletin summarizes publicized investigative activity and adjudicated cases conducted by Criminal Investigation Division special agents, forensic specialists, and legal support staff.

This edition discusses sentencing, trials, plea agreements, and indictments for cases related to the following, among other topics:

• Illegal distribution of ozone-depleting refrigerant gases
• Illegal dumping into coastal systems
• Negligent discharge of oil into U.S. waters
• Falsifying emissions standards tests
• Clean Air Act violations
• Unlawful treating of hazardous waste
• Illegal pollutant discharge

INECE encourages participants to share their countries’ public compliance and enforcement news bulletins and success stories so that the broader community can benefit from your knowledge and experience. Please email materials or links to inece@inece.org or post them as comments to this article.

In cooperation with the International Network for Environmental Compliance and Enforcement (INECE), the Flemish High Council of Environmental Enforcement (VHRM) is organizing an international conference on Environmental Enforcement Networks: Concepts, Implementation, and Effectiveness which will take place in Brussels, Belgium, on 13 and 14 November 2013.

Abstracts are due 15 April 2013 and should be sent to: info at vhrm.vlaanderen.be.

This conference will explore in depth the potential advantages and challenges of environmental compliance and enforcement networks, formal as well as informal networks. It will assess criteria for determining a network’s effectiveness from a theoretical perspective and examine the practical cases where networks have delivered measurable compliance and enforcement benefits in practice.

Proposals for a paper are invited, dealing with:

• Benchmarks and criteria for optimal transboundary environmental enforcement networks
• Lessons learned from networks between various inspection authorities, both national and transboundary
• Networking between administrative (inspection authorities, administrative sanctioning) and criminal enforcement and sanctioning authorities (public prosecutor’s office), both national and transboundary
• Thematic networks, such as on transboundary movement of waste, wildlife and ODS
• National, regional and transboundary case studies discussing any of the above
• Activities, actions, goals and products of compliance and environmental enforcement networks
• Theoretical and practical concepts underpinning network cooperation
• Failure and success factors of environmental enforcement networks
• Value and impact of environmental enforcement networks
• Governance, operations, and funding of networks

Proposals for a paper should consist of an abstract (max. 2 pages) in English, indicating the topic, affiliations of the author and goal of the paper. Again, the proposal submission deadline is: 15 April 2013 and papers should be sent to: info at vhrm.vlaanderen.be.

Proposals will be reviewed by a selection committee and acceptance of papers will be communicated by 15 May 2013. Full papers are due by 30 September 2013. A limited amount of grants (partial / full) are available for accepted presenters. For more information, please contact the VHRM at info at vhrm.vlaanderen.be. Selection is at the discretion of the organizers.

For an overview of existing literature, see INECE’s bibliography of publications on environmental compliance and enforcement networks.

The organizers will publish the proceedings of this conference in a book with an international publisher. Given the goal of publication, all presenters are requested to have a written paper in English (academic proficiency).

For more information, contact the VHRM at info at vhrm.vlaanderen.be or +32 (0) 2 553 85 82.

The Bulletin summarizes publicized investigative activity and adjudicated cases conducted by Criminal Investigation Division special agents, forensic specialists, and legal support staff.

This edition discusses sentencing, trials, plea agreements, and indictments for cases related to the following, among other topics:

• Large fish kills
• Illegal discharges of pollutants
• Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act violations
• Chemical leaks
• Illegal fracking waste discharge

INECE encourages participants to share their countries’ public compliance and enforcement news bulletins and success stories so that the broader community can benefit from your knowledge and experience. Please email materials or links to inece@inece.org or post them as comments to this article.

Wifredo A. Ferrer, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, Maureen O’Mara, Special Agent in Charge, United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Criminal Investigation Division, Atlanta Area Office, and Alysa D. Erichs, Special Agent in Charge, United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations (ICE-HSI), announced today that defendant, FSD Group, LLC a Florida corporation with its headquarters in Miami, was convicted and sentenced in connection with the illegal receipt, purchase, and sale of ozone-depleting refrigerant gas that had been smuggled into the United States contrary to the Clean Air Act, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 545.

Information filed against it before United States District Court Judge Joan Lenard, for knowingly receiving, buying, selling and facilitating the transportation, concealment, and sale of approximately 65,592 kilograms of the ozone-depleting substance hydrochlorofluorocarbon-22 (“HCFC-22″) which had been illegally smuggled into the United States contrary to the Clean Air Act. HCFC-22 is a widely used refrigerant for residential heat pump and air-conditioning systems.

Immediately following the guilty plea, FSD Group was sentenced to three years of probation and ordered to pay a $100,000.00 criminal fine. In addition, as a special condition of probation, FSD Group was ordered to implement and enforce a comprehensive Environmental Compliance Plan. FSD Group was also ordered to forfeit to the United States $180,051.00, which represents proceeds received as a result of the crime and pay owed duties to the United States Customs and Border Protection for incorrectly classified merchandise.

]]> http://inece.org/2013/03/07/ods/feed/ 0 http://inece.org/2013/02/27/inspection-consultations/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=inspection-consultations http://inece.org/2013/02/27/inspection-consultations/#comments Wed, 27 Feb 2013 16:18:58 +0000 inece-secretariat http://inece.org/?p=2681 The European Commission seeks consultations on the potential revision of the EU legal framework on environmental inspections.

Contributions are particularly sought from national, regional and local authorities with environmental enforcement tasks, trans-European and national networks of environmental professionals such as inspectors and prosecutors, businesses and their organisations, environmental non-governmental organisations, outdoor recreational organisations and citizens at large.

The  Commission estimates that the questionnaire should take approximately 35-40 minutes of your time. In addition to a number of introductory questions, the questionnaire contains 28 questions organised in the following clusters:

• Level playing field – the overall role of enforcement, in particular inspections
• Role of compliance promotion
• Co-ordination and streamlining of enforcement and, where appropriate, compliance promotion within Member States
• Criteria for organising, planning, carrying out and following up environmental inspections within Member States
• Co-operation on trans-boundary inspection work
• EU level capacity on environmental inspections
• Data, assessment of effectiveness and transparency

Comments will be accepted through May 26. The consultation documents and questionnaire is available at http://ec.europa.eu/environment/consultations/inspections_en.htm.

Themis is the informal network for cooperation in the areas of natural resource management, nature protection, forestry and combating environmental crimes. The main subjects of the meeting were the report of the activities in 2012 and the results for the Themis network.

In the 2012 report, each participant described the impact of the work plan 2012 in each country. A discussion was held on the 2014 to 2016 activities and it was agreed that the Themis Secretariat will prepare a draft work plan based on these discussions of course pending funding for the years after 2013. Presentations were delivered by INECE and by Bird life Hungary.

The meeting ended with a joint statement of all the participants stressing the need for the network, the fact that the activities contributed to a better environmental cooperation, and a proposal to widening of the network to other enforcers, like judges, prosecutors, police, and customs. The joint statement is available on Themis’ website.

The Themis network activities are funded by the Austrian development Agency in Vienna.

Participants discussed important recent developments and new opportunities regarding the rule of law in the field of the environment and how the rule of law can be promoted for greater effect in the quest for environmental sustainability, sustainable development and social justice.

The Meeting examined the strong linkages between sustainable development and the rule of law, such as the negative effects of transnational organized crime, including environmental crime; the mutually supportive relationship between the adherence to the rule of law and the respect for all human rights, including those related to the environment; access to justice in environmental matters and new and emerging principles, such as the non-regression in environmental law; and the importance of so-called country systems and other developments at the national level to improve the effectiveness of environmental law.

INECE Managing Director Ken Markowitz Delivers Remarks at the High Level Meeting

A key outcome of the High Level Meeting was the formation of the “UNEP Advisory Committee on Environmental Justice,” which will  play a major role in educating policymakers on the legal framework to advance the outcomes of Rio+20 and the World Congress on Justice, Governance and Law for Environmental Sustainability.  UNEP plans to support a website and portal, capacity building initiatives, and journal on the rule of law and the environment.

For details on the discussions that took place during the meeting, see IISD’s Briefing Note. The agenda for the meeting is available on UNEP’s website.