[5] Environmental maritime crimes are committed at sea with the intent of avoiding regulations and extra fees, meaning that criminals can have important financial gains by bypassing legal protocols.
[8] These illicit activities often intertwine with a range of other unlawful practices, spanning from smuggling to tax evasion, extending their consequences beyond maritime boundaries into broader territorial realms.
[7] Even when perpetrators are brought to justice, the effectiveness of deterrent measures is often compromised by lenient penalties that prioritize financial compensation, in the form of fines, over preventing future violations.
Despite the relevance of the issue and the stakes it presents, there remains a significant gap in the monitoring and reporting of maritime environmental crimes by many countries, including several developed nations.
[10] The lack of regular tracking and public reporting hampers efforts to combat these crimes effectively on a global scale, underscoring the need for increased collaboration and transparency among nations to protect marine ecosystems and biodiversity.
[15] According to council conclusions (14280/23 2023), these environmental challenges are important and enduring, including “biodiversity loss, depletion of fish stocks, coastal inundation, and the degradation of critical ecosystems such as coral reefs and mangroves”.
[16] Additionally, efforts to address biodiversity loss include the "nature restoration law", mandating the implementation of recovery measures covering a minimum of a fifth of the EU's marine territories by 2030.
[16] The EU assumes a central international role by monitoring Member States' progress towards the set objectives and actively participating in multilateral conventions, such as the 2022 United Nations Biodiversity Conference (COP15).
[18] The EU is also actively developing tools to support these efforts, including technologies for early warning and strategic foresight, as well as mechanisms for monitoring ocean elevation, degradation, keeping track of oil spills and attributing responsibility, such as the CleanSeaNet satellites.
[27] The IMO is an extremely important agency to mention when analyzing maritime environmental crime, as it not only implemented the MARPOL initiative, but it is also the actor that came up with other key conventions and agreements concerning legal frameworks on insurance and post-incident environmental reparations;[28] some of its key initiatives widely ratified by States are the "civil liability for pollution damage", firstly adopted in 1969 but then revised, which establishes standards for economic remuneration in the event of an accident that caused marine pollution, and the processes to follow in such an event.
[31] During the first 30 Days at Sea operation in 2018, agents from around the world detected over 500 crimes, primarily related to illegal oil and garbage disposal, leading to hundreds of investigations.
Despite the richness of this body of international environmental protection principles, it often faces fragmentation and overlaps, highlighting the ongoing challenge of coordinating global efforts to safeguard marine ecosystems.
[7] This ineffectiveness grows from a lack of legal coherence, the judicial system being complex, failures to harmonize laws and establish a common definition of maritime eco-crimes and their respective penalties.