Criminal Law Approaches to Preventing Environmental Offences in the European Union within the Framework of Sustainable Development

Environmental crime represents one of the most significant challenges that humanity is currently facing and will continue to face in the near future. The establishment of effective preventive policies and mechanisms presents major difficulties, caused on the one hand by the poor awareness—especially at the „microsocial” and „individual” levels—of the danger posed by this type of crime not only to humanity but to the entire planet. On the other hand, the strongly cross-border nature of environmental crimes requires that prevention efforts involve proactive cooperation between states at both regional and international levels. The emergence of the concept of sustainable development has made a significant contribution to raising awareness of environmental issues, including from the perspective of criminal law, the prevention of acts that cause harm to the environment. This study explores the interaction between the concept of sustainable development and existing environmental crime prevention policies at the European level. In the same vein, the study addresses the evolution of criminal law policies for the prevention of environmental crime within the EU, particularly in light of the new preventive mechanisms introduced by Directive (EU) 2024/1203 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 April 2024 on the protection of the environment through criminal law, replacing Directives 2008/99/EC and 2009/123/EC.