Å®ÉúСÊÓƵ

Environmental criminals could soon be helping green police with their
enquiries. Last week Carlo Ripa di Meana, the European Community’s Commissioner
for the environment, announced plans for a force of inspectors who would
check on member countries to see if they are sticking to the community’s
environmental laws. He also wants the UN to set up a corps to intervene
in environmental emergencies.

Ripa made the announcements at a scientific meeting on climate change
in Turin on climate change. The environmental damage caused by the Gulf
War ‘underlines the lack of judicial means for the international community
to protect the environment’, he said. The EC will propose a ‘permanent international
tribunal’ on the environment at next year’s UN Conference on Environment
and Development in Brazil.

The tribunal would decide how environmental rules applied in war, just
as the Geneva Convention regulates the treatment of prisoners of war. ‘In
cases of armed conflict it could ensure that natural resources are not devastated,’
said Ripa. To enforce its decisions, he wants the tribunal to command a
corps of ‘Green Helmets’, similar to the ‘Blue Helmets’ of UN peacekeeping
troops. ‘We have seen in the Gulf that environmental crime remains unpunished.
International law lacks sanctions.’

Ripa has long criticised Europe’s inability to enforce its own rules
on the environment. Some member states still have not enacted as many as
half the environmental directives passed by EC ministers.

To remedy this sorry state of affairs, Ripa intends, with cooperation
with the European Parliament, to ‘construct a real body of inspectors’ empowered
to check adherence to Community rules. The inspectors should have the power
to levy fines, said Ripa. He also wants to set up a fund to provide the
means to deal with environmental emergencies, similar to the US Superfund.

Last month the Community’s environment ministers agreed to expand an
existing task force for oil spills, so that it can act in cases of chemical
pollution and forest fires. The task force will not have independent powers
of inspection, however. Even the proposed new European Environment Agency
will lack the authority to make inspections and enforce European laws.

The agency still does not have a home, because of disagreement among
members about the sites for several European institutions. Ripa said European
heads of state might decide the issue in June, by ‘decoupling’ the Agency
from other decisions.

Staff in Brussels say that some other commissioners oppose Ripa’s plans
for a European environment inspectorate, as many opposed his plans for
a tax on carbon emissions. But such opposition can be overcome: Ripa says
he expects the Commission to approve a carbon tax by June.

The proposal for a UN corps of Green Helmets has also received mixed
reactions. Developing countries are likely to view it as an example of ‘environmental
imperialism’ said some experts at the conference in Turin. This would discourage
poor countries from participating in international environmental agreements.
‘I don’t mind the green helmet, but I haven’t got a black shirt to go with
it,’ said one British scientist in Turin, referring to the uniform worn
by Italy’s Fascists in the 1930s. Ripa was dismissive: ‘There are always
such silly people who make comments like this. I don’t care what they say.’