The IUCN World Commission on Environmental Law (WCEL) has released a position paper setting out the priorities of its newly established Crimes that Affect the Environment (CAE) Specialist Group. The Specialist Group was created by the WCEL Steering Committee following the 8th IUCN World Conservation Congress in October 2025, in direct response to IUCN Resolution 8.048 on Crimes that Affect the Environment and the 2026–2029 IUCN Programme, which identifies preventing and reducing CAE as a distinct programme output.
The paper argues that CAE, spanning wildlife, forestry, fisheries, mining, pollution and waste offenses, represent one of the most serious and systemic threats to the natural world, fuelling biodiversity loss, corruption, displacement of Indigenous Peoples and local communities, and risks to environmental defenders and rangers. Central to the group’s agenda is support for launching negotiations, at the UNTOC Conference of Parties in October 2026, on an additional protocol under the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime to address transnational and organised CAE.
This publication comes shortly after IUCN formalised a strategic partnership with the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) aimed at deepening cooperation on environmental crime. The agreement, announced in June 2026, seeks to bridge the gap between conservation science and international criminal justice, addressing wildlife trafficking, illegal logging, fisheries crime, pollution and other environmental offenses, including those linked to transnational organized crime. The WCEL position paper explicitly builds on this momentum, noting that IUCN and UNODC have entered an MOU that further advances their collaboration, and identifying the UN’s Vienna duty station, home to UNODC, UNTOC and UNCAC, as the primary hub for advancing intergovernmental efforts to combat these crimes. With the UN Crime Congress in Abu Dhabi and the UNTOC CoP13 in Vienna both scheduled for later in 2026, the Specialist Group frames this year as pivotal for cementing a binding international legal framework to tackle environmental crime.
