This lecture series provides a set of important insights from environmental law scholars on how EU environmental law helps to achieve the aim of a high level of environmental protection in the European Union and across the world.

This freely accessible online (and hybrid) lecture series provides students and scholars with core insights in the state of affairs and further development of EU environmental law. The lecture series will run in 2023 and 2024. Click here for an overview of the scheduled lectures.

Opening by Professor Michael Faure: “Criminal Law as an Enforcement System of the Environmental Acquis”

The lecture series will be opened by Michael Faure and focuses on environmental criminal law. Since the compliance deficit is a notorious feature of EU environmental law, the question of how to strengthen enforcement in an appropriate way is deliberately chosen as the opening theme of the lecture series.

Abstract
This inaugural lecture to the series will focus on the possibilities of the criminal law to enforce the EU'S environmental acquis within the Member States. There will be a discussion of the 2008 Environmental Crime Directive and its major challenges. A critical analysis will be provided of the role of the criminal law in comparison to other instruments in the so-called toolkit (administrative and civil sanctions). The question will also arise to what extent the criminal law is able to lead to a level-playing-field and can avoid a race-to-the-bottom between Member States. Specific attention will be given to the relationship between criminal law and administrative law and more particularly the question whether the criminal law can intervene, also when the conditions of regulation have been followed. In relation to this, the question will also be addressed whether so-called ecocide-type crimes could be criminalized in an autonomous manner.

Biography
Prof. Dr. Michael G. Faure LL.M. became academic director of the Maastricht European institute for transnational legal research (METRO) and professor of Comparative and International Environmental Law at the law faculty of Maastricht University in September 1991. He still holds both positions today.

In addition, he is academic director of the Ius Commune Research School and member of the board of directors of Ectil. Since the first of February 2008, he is half time professor of comparative private law and economics at the Rotterdam Insitute of Law & Economics (RILE) of the Erasmus University in Rotterdam and academic director of the European Doctorate in Law and Economics (EDLE) programme. Since 1982 he is equally attorney at the Antwerp Bar. He publishes in the areas of environmental (criminal) law, tort and insurance and economic analysis of (accident) law.