Justice Department Hosts Workshop to Enhance Cooperation in Tackling Environmental Crime
The Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division (ENRD) recently partnered with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to host a workshop to enhance coordination in addressing environmental crime and examine improved enforcement techniques. Individuals from the FBI, Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and the U.S. Coast Guard – as well as representatives of Europol and the governments of Scotland, Canada and Mexico – also attended the workshop.
Chapter 24 of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) – entered into in 2020 – outlines seven multilateral environmental agreements, including to combat wildlife and fauna trafficking and to address air quality and ocean pollution. The workshop focused on pollution and waste crimes.
Speakers highlighted the increased importance of enforcing environmental laws and international agreements in light of climate change and its devastating and increasingly apparent effects around the globe. But investigating and prosecuting environmental crime can be challenging because of the intersection of complex white-collar crime, financial structures and technical and scientific issues.
Against this background, the workshop expanded on new enforcement techniques, like using data analytics and unmanned aerial vehicles, to improve the investigation and prosecution of environmental crimes across international borders. The workshop closed with identifying specific ways to deliver operational enforcement activities within the next year.
“Environmental crimes are often transnational, affecting a variety of communities in myriad ways. It is important to foster collaboration within the U.S. government, and between our government and those of other nations, to enforce laws to reduce waste and pollution, among other things. This week’s workshop did that, and highlighted ways to incorporate more sophisticated enforcement resources. We thank all who attended the workshop for their commitment to uphold the rule of law.”
— Assistant Attorney General Todd Kim of ENRD.
The workshop builds on ENRD’s work to improve collaboration around the world in addressing environmental crimes, including in Guatemala, Mozambique and Ghana, Southeast Asia, Cameroon and Ukraine.
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