5. Aspecte privind emergenţa dreptului penal internaţional al mediului
5. Aspects regarding the emergence of environmental international criminal law

Summary/Abstract: This paper is intended to present the evolution of criminal environmental law at international level. First, it analyzes the extremely fast development of environmental law in the sense that in a relatively short time there were principles consolidated and rules arose with immediate application and impact. In part this rapid development is due to the evolution of the global nature of the material effects that are targeted and criminalized in environmental law: trans-boundary pollution, environmental crime, uncontrolled resource exploitation; phenomena which in recent years have escalated to a worrying level. The environmental law, although it is a separate and independent branch of law, cannot be analyzed without considering its interdependence with other branches of law, especially international law. This becomes apparent when developing new international rules with immediate application specifically targeting environmental law therefore it can be described as a “workshop of legal experimentation“. In criminal law, international environmental standards may not be applicable directly but only transposed from treaties and conventions in internal laws by signatory states, so the limitations of public international criminal law will apply in the matter. In particular facts can be established that will be incriminated, but often it is up to the signatory states to decide if these facts will be punished criminally or administratively and how they will be sanctioned, with no possibility to establish any minimum or maximum limits to sanction the alleged misconduct.

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