Crimes against Environment in Albania and the European Union's Approach to the Protection of Environment through Criminal Law

Abstract

The protection of environment is of particular importance for Albania in its integration process to the European Union (EU), which considers it to be one of the “essential objectives of the Community” as highlighted in the case-law of the European Court of Justice. Taking into consideration the requirements of the specific EU directives on the protection of environment through criminal law, one of the expected legal reforms in the approximation process will be the adaption of the Albanian substantive environmental criminal law to the requirements of the Environmental Crime Directives. The need for aligning the Albanian criminal law with these directives has been highlighted by the Commission in the 2014 Progress Report on Albania. This paper examines the Albanian substantive environmental criminal law and its application in practice in the last ten years, aiming to identify the main challenges it faces in the context of the required transposition of EU Environmental Crime Directives, while also making suggestions on how to better respond to these issues. For this purpose, the paper will also refer to the experience of other countries with the implementation process in this field, highlighting the main problems encountered and the impacts of the Environmental Crime Directives transposition.