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Will Canada support a new global agreement to tackle the world’s fourth most lucrative crime? The answer is not clear.
International environmental crime is estimated to be worth up to US$300 billion annually. Other high-value crime areas – narcotics, weapons smuggling, corruption, human trafficking and counterfeiting – all fall under an international co-operation convention. Environmental crime doesn’t.
Later this year, adding new environmental frameworks to that convention will be discussed at United Nations meetings. Under that proposal, participating states would commit to tightening laws and implementing collaboration processes.
Unfortunately, the Canadian government has reserved its position at this time. It should support the proposal as a logical extension of Canada’s longstanding commitment to multilateral, rules-based co-operation on both crime and the environment.That would not only help Canadian interests. It would assist the many countries with far fewer means than ours to fight transnational crime.
The problem is widespread
Illegal fishing, prohibited emissions, illegal timber and mining activities, poaching and trafficking of protected or endangered species all harm international economic security and health. They also undermine sustainable development, feed social unrest and are often linked to smuggling, modern slavery, corruption and money laundering.
A bloc of Global South countries from Africa, Asia, South and Central America wants to change this. Will the affluent northern countries, including Canada, which has not revealed its final position, block it?
The sudden vacuum in the fight against environmental crime and corruption
Voluntary corporate accountability doesn’t work. Canada needs to mandate it.
Environmental crime is also a Canadian problem. During the last two decades, hundreds of tonnes of foreign species destined for Canadian tables – such as illegal European eel meat for sushi, shark fins for soup, queen conch meat and traditional medicines and supplements containing rhinoceros horn – have been seized.
Illegal emission-defeating devices have been found in cars, while juvenile eels worth hundreds of thousands of dollars and one million kilograms of illegal waste were seized before planned export. The list goes on. Many crimes generate profits that then require money laundering, triggering new violations.
Stopping lawbreakers is challenging because bilateral legal assistance treaties don’t exist among all nations, especially small and developing countries with limited enforcement and diplomatic reach.
The UN Convention on Transnational Organized Crime (UNTOC) is one existing multilateral solution that facilitates enforcement collaboration, evidence sharing and prosecutions across borders. But it can be used only for serious offenses – where offenders may be sentenced to four years or more imprisonment.
Therein lies the problem. Most countries’ penalties – including Canada’s fisheries, pollution and many wildlife laws – do not meet this threshold. UNTOC collaboration mechanisms also cannot be used where a crime is serious in one country but not in the other.
Improving environmental crime frameworks will be discussed at UN Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice meetings in June and September in advance of the UNTOC Convention of State Parties in October where a proposal seeking a mandate to negotiate a new green crime addition to UNTOC is expected to be put forward.
Benefits would go beyond better law enforcement. Highly regulated Canadian businesses compete on an uneven playing field with perpetrators who may act with virtual impunity abroad.
A new mechanism will help governments around the world ensure “trade is sustainable, safe and legal” under the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.
However, the Carney government has so far suggested only that other countries increase their crime penalties to meet UNTOC thresholds. That is ironic because Canada has not done that for most of its own environmental laws.
A US$300-billion problem demands more than spectating. It demands countries with vision, willing to shape the next generation of global enforcement tools. Canada has the legal foundation, diplomatic credibility and multilateral experience to do so. It should seize the role.
