Protection of Environmental Crime Victims: Review of the Contribution of International Human Rights Law

Historically victims of crime are not recognized in the fields of traditional criminology and criminal justice and therefore victimology, a study of victims, has been excluded from criminology. Also, the role of victims was minimal in the traditional criminal justice process. This means no attempt or very little attempt has taken to analyze the issues related to victims. The environmental crime crime victims are not an exception this situation in the traditional criminal law. Though the environmental crimes affect the society collectively, including living (people and animals) and non-living things/objects, the results of these crimes are not visible at the time of commission of the crime or even soon after the crime, as in the other traditional crimes. This specific nature is always led to recognize environmental crimes as victimless crimes, creating issues in protecting the victims of environmental crime and their rights. Furthermore, the international human rights treaty law has set out minimum standards to safeguard the basic rights of the victims of crime. However, it developed some norms and principles to protect the environment from harmful activities committed by people in the name of the economic development process. Until to the date, it is open for a discussion to what extent the international human rights treaty law has drawn its serious attention to protect the victims of environmental crimes and their rights specifically. Therefore, this study intends to investigate the adequacy of the international human treaty law in protection of the rights of the victims of environmental crimes. In this study some international human rights law treaties such as the UN Declaration of Basic Principles of Justice for Victims of Crime and Abuse of Power of 1985, Stockholm Declaration of 1972, Aarhus Convention, Espoo Convention—Kiev Protocol and Rome Statute are reviewed in this regard. The study discusses the issues in definition of environmental crime, and victims of environmental crimes, under the aforementioned international conventions in order to fill the lacuna in the international human rights law in protection of the rights of the victim. A study of this nature facilitates to expand the horizon of the international human rights law relating to the protection of the environment and to the protection of basic rights of a human being which is essential in the implementation of the concept of sustainable development.