Natural resources are common properties of humankind. It requires global attention to preserve and protect.

1. Adv. Vijay Jayshwal
Kathmandu University School of Law
Offenses relating to Natural
Resources

2. Perspectives
 The definition of “environmental crime” is not
universally agreed, it is often understood as a
collective term to describe illegal activities harming
the environment and aimed at benefitting
individuals or groups or companies from the
exploitation of, damage to, trade or theft of natural
resources, including serious crimes and
transnational organized crime (TNCs).
 Environmental crimes are aggravated through their
additional cost and impact on the environment and
cost to future generations.
 Deforestation, dumping of chemicals and illegal
fisheries causes loss of ecosystem services such as
clean air and clean water, extreme weather mitigation,
food security and even health and wellbeing.
 They also deprive governments of much-needed
revenues and undermine legal businesses.

3.  The international community is still far behind in
combating the rising role of environment-associated
crimes for threat finance in conflict and for
development and environmental security.
 Resources allocated to international enforcement
efforts against environmental crimes are completely
under-dimensioned for containing the growth in
environmental crimes.
 Current global resources specifically allocated to
international organisations such as INTERPOL,
UNEP, WCO, UNODC and relevant conventions
specifically for combating these transnational
environmental crimes are likely combined no more
than 20–30 million USD globally (dependent on
calculation), resulting in continued rising involvement
of organized criminal networks due to a permissive

4.  Criminals exploit the lack of international consensus and
the divergence of approaches taken by countries. What
may constitute a crime in one country, is not in another.
 This effectively enables criminals to go “forum shopping”
and use for example one country to conduct poaching,
another to prepare merchandise, and export via a third
transit country.
 Forum shopping is a practice adopted by litigants to
get their cases heard in a particular court that is likely
to provide a favorable judgment.
 According to UNODC (UN Office on Drugs and Crime),
corruption is the most important enabling factor behind
illegal wildlife and timber trade. Identifying the optimal legal
framework for preventing, combating and prosecuting
environmental crimes requires careful consideration.
 The country specific has spend relatively good budget in
order to tackle with environment crime.
 For example, in North America, 44% is spent on courts and
prosecution and 56% on police, while in the countries in
southern Africa only 16% is spent on prosecution/courts
and 84% on police.

5.  In 2014, the INTERPOL General Assembly
passed a Resolution on INTERPOL’s response to
emerging threats in Environmental Security
(Resolution AG-2014-RES-03).
 In that Resolution, instead of defining
environmental crime, INTERPOL instead focused
on “environmental security” by recognizing the
impact that environmental crime and violations
can have on a nation’s political stability,
environmental quality, its natural resources,
biodiversity, economy and human life.
 INTERPOL also recognizes that criminal
networks engaged in financial crime, fraud,
corruption, illicit trade and human trafficking are
also engaged in or facilitating environmental

6.  Both INTERPOL and the Commission on Crime Prevention and
Criminal Justice (CCPCJ) have taken this approach. By
regarding environmental crimes more as a collective term, they
can fall under already established laws on serious crimes,
including, but not limited to, serious financial crimes, corporate
crimes, forgery, fraud including tax fraud, organized crime and
threat or terrorist finance, where the damage to the environment
or use of natural resources is a means to this goal and an
aggravating condition.
 Importantly, as pointed out by the EU, in Directive 2008/99/ EC of
The European Parliament and of the Council of 19 November
2008 on the protection of the environment through criminal law:-
 “failure to comply with a legal duty to act can have the same
effect as active behaviour and should therefore also be subject
to corresponding penalties. Therefore, such conduct should be
considered a criminal offence throughout the Community when
committed intentionally or with serious negligence”

7.  Natural resources are increasingly driving conflicts,
and the nexus of organized crime and threat finance
provide a particularly challenging framework for
intervention and early prevention.
 This was recognized in UN Security Council
Resolution S/RES/2195 (2014), which strongly called
upon and encouraged the wider UN, as appropriate,
and member states to “to collect, analyse and
exchange information, including law enforcement and
intelligence information” to ”prevent terrorism
benefiting from transnational organized crime” and to
share, as appropriate, between Special
Representatives of the Secretary-General, the
Department of Peacekeeping Operations, the
Department of Political Affairs, the Counter-Terrorism
Executive Directorate, the UN Office on Drugs and
Crime, the Counter-Terrorism Implementation Task
Force and the United Nations Development
Programme, within existing mandates and resources.

8.  On the illegal wildlife trade, CITES (The
Convention on International Trade in Endangered
Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) is the legally
binding international instrument that imposes
obligations on source, transit and destination
states. Its aim is to ensure that international trade
in specimens of wild animals and plants does not
threaten their survival.

9. Key International Laws
 The Basel Convention on the Control of
Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes
and their Disposal, which primarily covers wastes
trade (1992)
 The Rotterdam Convention on the Prior Informed
Consent Procedure for Certain Hazardous
Chemicals and Pesticides in International Trade
and (2004)
 The Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic
Pollutants which primarily covers chemicals,
including restrictions on production (2004)

10.  Applicable Theories on Crime Against Natural
Resources

11. Green Criminology
 Green criminology refers to the study
of environmental crimes and harms affecting
human and non‐human life, ecosystems and the
biosphere. More specifically, green criminology
explores and analyzes:
 The causes, consequences and prevalence
of environmental crime and harm, the responses
to and prevention of environmental crime and
harm by the legal system (civil, criminal,
regulatory) and by nongovernmental entities and
social movements, as well as
the meaning and mediated representations of
environmental crime and harm.

12. ECOPHILOSOPHICAL
 It studies perspectives on the relationship between
humans, the natural environment and nonhuman
animals: 1) anthropocentrism; 2) biocentrism; and
3) ecocentrism.
 These philosophies influence how green
criminologists understand harm or define “crime,” as
well as their appreciation of the nature of victimization
of humans, nonhuman animals and specific
environments and ecosystems.
 An anthropocentric perspective is human‐centered,
emphasizing “the biological, mental and moral
superiority of humans over other living and non‐living
entities.
 A biocentric perspective “views humans as simply
‘another species’ to be attributed the same moral
worth” as organisms such as birds, whales and

13. JUSTICE‐BASED APPROACHES
 Scholar identifies three justice‐based approaches—
1) environmental justice; 2) species justice; and
3) ecological justice.
 Environmental justice emerged as a concept in the
United States in the 1980s and is a term referring
both to a social movement dedicated to the fair
distribution of environmental benefits and burdens
and to an interdisciplinary body of social science
literature.
 Species justice refers to the idea that nonhuman
animals have rights based on their own utilitarian
values (maximizing pleasure, minimizing pain),
inherent value (right to respectful treatment), and an
ethic of responsible caring.
 Ecological justice refers to the relationship of humans
generally to the rest of the natural world

14. Environmental Criminology
 Environmental criminology is a generic phrase
that encompasses a number of different
approaches aimed at reducing the occurrence of
criminal events by examining the physicality in
which the crimes occur. Rooted in human and
social ecology, environmental criminology studies
crime, criminality, and victimization as they relate
to place, space, and their interaction.
 Specifically, environmental criminology explores
how criminal opportunities are generated given
the nature of the existing setting.

15. Social ecology
 Social ecology is also the basis for the research
being conducted in environmental criminology.
 Social ecology is based on the conviction that
nearly all of our present ecological problems
originate in deep- seated social problems.
 Economic, ethnic, cultural, and gender conflicts,
among many others, lie at the core of the most
serious ecological dislocations.

16. Access and Benefit Sharing
 Access and benefit-sharing (ABS) refers to the
way in which genetic resources may be
accessed, and how the benefits that result from
their use are shared between the people or
countries using the resources (users) and the
people or countries that provide them (providers).
 The Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic
Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of
Benefits Arising from their Utilization to the
Convention on Biological Diversity is an
international agreement which aims at sharing the
benefits arising from the utilization of genetic
resources in a fair and equitable way. It entered
into force on 12 October 2014, 90 days after the
date of deposit of the fiftieth instrument of

17. Cultural Criminology
 Cultural criminology is a theoretical,
methodological, and interventionist approach to
the study of crime that seeks to
understand crime in the context of its culture.
 It views both crime and the agencies of control
as cultural products.
 Most developments related to the concept of
cultural genocide occurred in the field of public
international law (international human rights law
and international cultural heritage law), thus
involving state responsibility.
 Cultural criminology explores the convergence of
cultural and criminal processes in contemporary
social life.

18. Protection of Cultural Heritage
 In 2003, UNESCO devised an international
solution to combat the illicit traffic of cultural
property.
 UNESCO offers all stakeholders involved
(Governments, customs officials, art dealers,
organizations, lawyers, buyers and so forth) a
complete and easily accessible source of
information.
 In the event of a legal question about the origin of
an object (which may have been stolen, pillaged,
or illegally exported, imported or acquired), it is
useful to have rapid access to the relevant
national laws

19. The UNESCO Database of National
Cultural Heritage Laws
 national laws currently in force related to the
protection of the cultural heritage in general
 import/export certificates for cultural property
(available on request)
 official or unofficial translations of national laws
and certificates
 contact details for the national authorities
responsible for the protection of the cultural
heritage
 addresses of the official national websites
dedicated to the protection of the cultural heritage

20. Categories of Heritage
1. Cultural heritage:
 Tangible cultural heritage: immovable
(monuments, archaeological sites), movable
(paintings, coins, archaeological objects),
underwater (shipwrecks, underwater cities)
 Intangible cultural heritage: oral traditions,
performing arts, rituals
2. Natural heritage: natural sites, physical,
biological or geological formations

21.  Cultural criminology investigates the stylized
frameworks and experiential dynamics of illicit
subcultures; the symbolic criminalization of
popular culture forms; and the mediated
construction of crime and crime control issues.
 In addition, emerging areas of inquiry within
cultural criminology include the development of
situated media and situated audiences for crime;
the media and culture of policing; the links
between crime, crime control, and cultural space;
and the collectively embodied emotions that
shape the meaning of crime.

22. Ancient Monument Preservation Act,
2013 ( 1956 A.D.)
 Purpose of the Act :
 To maintain peace and order by preserving the
ancient monument and by controlling the trade in
archaeological objects as well as the excavation
of the place of ancient monuments and by
acquiring and preserving ancient monument and
archaeological, historical or artistic objects.
 This Act has also helped to provide legal
protection and recognition to available heritage
properties.
 There is weak enforcement of this law due to
political reasons.

23. Thank you