Alstrom, Freja (2026) Accountability Gaps in EU Environmental Criminal Law: A Case-Based Analysis of Directive (EU) 2024/1203 and the Case for Ecocide. Bachelor thesis, Global Responsibility & Leadership (GRL).
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Abstract
This thesis examines the extent to which the criminalization of ecocide would provide additional value to the European Union's environmental criminal law framework. It does so with particular reference to the Directive (EU) 2024/1203, referred to as the Environmental Crime Directive (2024 ECD). It adopts a case-based doctrinal methodology combining a structured literature review with an analysis of two illustrative case studies of the Oder River disaster and the Volkswagen Dieselgate scandal. The literature review identifies the legal thresholds, underlying rationales, limitations and normative arguments associated with the frameworks. These findings are subsequently applied to the selected cases as legal stress-tests to evaluate how each framework responds to complex forms of environmental harm. The case analysis illustrates that the 2024 ECD captures regulatory unlawfulness in addressing environmental offences. However, difficulties arise when severe environmental harm results from lawful conduct. The ecocide framework appears better suited capturing the gravity of large-scale environmental destruction by focusing on harm rather than solely on regulatory breaches. Nevertheless, it faces challenges concerning causation, attribution of responsibility and the proof of knowledge. From these findings, this thesis concludes that ecocide adds value to the environmental criminal code of the EU. It does so primarily by addressing situations in which serious environmental harm may fall outside the scope of the 2024 ECD. The ecocide framework provides a complementary harm-based perspective that enables greater attention to the severity of environmental destruction itself. Additionally, this thesis finds that ecocide may serve an important normative and communicative function, by strengthening the symbolic condemnation of severe environmental harm and by encouraging a shift from an anthropocentric towards a more ecocentric understanding of environmental protection.
| Item Type: | Thesis (Bachelor) |
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| Name supervisor: | Huiskes, M.C. |
| Date Deposited: | 08 Jun 2026 09:20 |
| Last Modified: | 08 Jun 2026 09:20 |
| URI: | https://campus-fryslan.studenttheses.ub.rug.nl/id/eprint/787 |
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