Supreme Court Deepens International Cooperation on Environmental Protection

On 3 November 2020 judges of the Commercial Cassation Court within the Supreme Court Hanna Vronska and the Civil Cassation Court within the Supreme Court Nataliia Sakara along with representatives of the European Network of Prosecutors for the Environment, the Executive Agency for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (EASME), the European Union Forum of Judges for the Environment (EUFJE) participated in online meeting on the presentation of the project “Successful Wildlife Crime Prosecution in Europe/SWiPE”. The event was organized by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).

This project is aimed at strengthening the cooperation between judicial and law enforcement agencies, the interaction and collaboration on the prevention and effective investigation of wildlife crimes at the national and international levels.

During the meeting it was noted that wildlife crimes were a critical threat, but basic information about them was insufficient, unfortunately, usually they were perceived as opportunities for large illegal earnings with low risks, including due to gaps in legislation, insufficient level of specialized knowledge, insufficient monitoring, problems in law enforcement.

The participants discussed the main approaches to solving the issues of investigation of wildlife crimes in Europe and focused on identifying, researching the factors and driving forces that will contribute to the successful implementation of the SWiPE project.

We would like to remind that the Supreme Court has been an associate member of the EU Forum of Judges for the Environment (EUFJE) since 2019 and actively participates in activities related to environmental protection.