Call for registration: Giving a voice to the unheard victims of environmental crime (22 May 2024)

Illegal wildlife trade is the fourth most lucrative black market for transnational crime. Smuggling of endangered species is a low risk, high-profit crime, made all the more attractive to criminals in the absence of deterrent sentencing and effective enforcement.

To help legal professionals counter wildlife crime, Professor Amanda Whitfort of the Law Faculty has developed an international tool to help judges and prosecutors better understand the harms caused by illegal wildlife trade.  Bringing together law and science, her Species Victim Impact Statements initiative sets out the impacts of wildife crime for over 150 species, providing a voice for animals, plants and ecosystems in the criminal justice system. The SVIS initiative has been endorsed as an effective tool to combat wildlife crime by the United National Office on Drugs and Crime and has been included in the Nigerian Rapid Reference Guide for Prosecutors published in 2023. Professor Whitfort will talk about her approach to educating law enforcement officers in a seminar with the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime this Wednesday 22 May at 4pm. Registration is free and please click here for registration online.

Giving a voice to the unheard victims of environmental crime

A Talk By Amanda Whitfort , Prof Ray Jansen , Alastair MacBeath , Diana Chilambwe , Edward Banda (ACAZ, LLB, Cert) And Ashleigh Dore

22 May 2024

4:00 PM - 5:30 PM HKT

About This Talk

Animals and other species are often voiceless victims of environmental crimes. Such crimes were often marginalized in the legal sphere, treated as minor infractions with little regard for the impact on species and ecosystems. However, a new legal approach is reshaping how these offences are prosecuted and perceived. Species victim impact statements articulate the harm caused by environmental crimes from an animal rights perspective, the detrimental effects on species populations, the broader ecological damage as well as the associated impact on human populations.

This in an innovative approach that introduces eco-centric concerns into anthropocentric legal systems. It has grown into an effective body of practice, leading to increased sentences for environmental crimes in countries where academics and civil society organizations promoting this tactic are operating. The GI-TOC recently published a guide on the experience of those who have successfully developed and used species victim impact statements in Hong Kong, South Africa and Zambia.

This event brings together these experts to discuss why species victim impact statements are necessary, the particular challenges for their respective jurisdictions while offering guidance to assist those looking to develop these statements for use in court.

United Nations Office in Drugs and Crime Endorses HKU's KE Species Victim Impact Statement Fund Initiative (Amanda Whitfort)

Associate Professor Amanda Whitfort's KE work on the Species Victim Impact Statement Initiative (a collaboration between the HKU Law Faculty and the School of Biological Sciences' Conservation Forensics Lab) has been endorsed by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). Amanda's team prepares species victim impact statements for the most highly endangered animals in illegal trade. These have been used by prosecutors to inform the courts in Hong Kong of the impact of wildlife crime and have led to a 2000% increase in sentences since they were first adopted in 2016.

https://www.svis.law.hku.hk/

     Working with the international charity, the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), Amanda adapted the victim statements for African pangolin species and elephants for use by prosecutors in Nigerian courts in Africa. The UNODC has now published the species victim impact statements for these species as a recommended tool for effective prosecutions in Nigeria. The victim impact statements appear in the Nigerian Rapid Reference Guide for Prosecutors and Investigators of Wildlife Crime, which was launched by the Nigerian Minister of the Environment on World Wildlife Day, 3 March 2023. 

       The development of the Rapid Reference Guide for prosecutors and investigators is one of the key deliverables of the National Strategy to Combat Wildlife and Forest Crime in Nigeria 2022- 2026. This National Strategy is the first of its kind, with a five year plan to lay the foundation for sustained efforts towards achieving wildlife conservation in Nigeria.

     The HKU SVIS Initiative is proud to be impacting justice responses to wildlife crime globally. Amanda is now working with judges, prosecutors and law enforcement in ten countries ensuring this HKU funded Knowledge Exchange initiative continues to support the protection of endangered species around the world.

      Amanda has spoken about the project in a guest blog for the EIA published on their website this week.

Amanda Whitfort's KE work achieves OSCO amendment

Today the Organised and Serious Crimes Ordinance Cap 455 was amended to define smuggling of wildlife as organised and serious crime. This amendment will allow authorities to enforce the criminal law more effectively against the syndicates and kingpins behind the international trade in endangered species. Over the past 2 years over 900 tonnes of of wildlife was seized in Hong Kong. These seizures continue a decade-long upward trend that has seen the decimation of rhino, elephant and pangolin populations, globally, while the criminals funding the slaughter grow rich. The enhanced investigative and punitive powers that will now be accessible to law enforcement authorities tasked with combatting wildlife crime are a potential game changer, not just for Hong Kong, but regionally. If applied proactively, the OSCO amendment will result in critical deterrence of criminals seeking to exploit Hong Kong's porous borders to smuggle endangered species.

      Associate Professor Amanda Whitfort has worked for over 7 years to bring about this amendment. She has assisted the Wildlife Trade Working Group (a group of academics and NGOS convened by ADM Capital Foundation)in their advocacy, provided research on illegal trade to government and authored the White Paper on Enhanced Enforcement Strategies to protect Endangered Species that led Elizabeth Quat to propose the OSCO amendment as a private members bill in 2020.

      The HKU Law Faculty is also host to Whitfort's species victim impact statement initiative https://www.svis.law.hku.hk/ which aims to ensure prosecutors and judges understand the serious effects of wildlife crime on biodiversity and ecosystems globally. This project has resulted in a 2000% increase in sentences for wildlife crime since its inception in 2017.

Amanda Whitfort on Organised and Serious Crimes Ordinance (OSCO) amendments & Species Victim Impact Statement (SVIS)

An important step towards the acceptance of wildlife crime as organised and serious crime has been achieved with the CE providing her consent, under Article 74 of the Basic Law, to a private member's Bill to amend OSCO being presented in LegCo.

The Bill co-drafted by Amanda Whitfort and introduced to LegCo by lawmaker Elizabeth Quat in March 2021 requests the amendment to OSCO, which provides for a combination of enhanced enforcement and deterrent methods to investigate and prosecute serious wildlife crimes.

Unlike serious offences under the Dangerous Drugs Ordinance or the Theft Ordinance, offences under the Protection of Endangered Species Ordinance, Cap 586, have not been classified as ‘specified offences’ in Schedule 1 of OSCO. This has been a significant omission, given the organised nature of the transnational trade in endangered species. Despite the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and Interpol endorsing a ‘follow the money’ approach, focusing on the syndicates behind wildlife smuggling, enforcement in Hong Kong has traditionally focused on the mules in the supply chain, when offenders are caught red-handed trying to smuggle in the species. Failure to include Cap 586 offences in Schedule 1 of OSCO has also meant Hong Kong courts are not empowered, under the Ordinance, to confiscate the proceeds of organised crime’s wildlife trafficking.

The Hong Kong government increased the maximum penalties for wildlife crime in 2018. Unfortunately record-breaking seizures of smuggled wildlife have continued unabated. The OSCO amendment would go further to allow Hong Kong to effectively deter the criminal networks funding the extinction of endangered species.

Here is the link to the White Paper which convinced EQ to take up the Bill:

https://www.admcf.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Protection-of-Endangered-Species-White-Paper.pdf

There is an SCMP story on it last week: 

https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/article/3130438/hong-kongs-leading-role-global-extinction-crisis-hub-illegal-wildlife

Amanda Whitfort will be giving a talk on the OSCO amendments and my SVIS (species victim impact statement) project on 7 May on Zoom at HKU.   Details are as follows:

Speaker: Ms Amanda Whitfort

Title: New Law Reform Initiatives to Improve the Protection of Endangered Species in Hong Kong

Zoom details:

Topic: E&B Seminar Series

Time: May 7, 2021 04:00 PM Hong Kong SAR

Join Zoom Meeting: https://hku.zoom.com.cn/j/91675926608?pwd=d2ZoaElKS2pnWlVQS1lvaittSWtDdz09

Meeting ID：916 7592 6608

Password：329737