The Council of Europe welcomes the urgent legislative measures (Decree-Law No. 116) adopted by the Italian Government on 8 August to step up the fight against serious environmental crimes, restore legality, and ensure greater protection of public health and the environment.
Among other things, the decree intensifies penalties for unauthorized waste abandonment and illegal trafficking and introduces measures such as license suspension and exclusion from the register of environmental operators for non-compliant companies. The decree, which entered into force on 9 August, will now be subject to parliamentary conversion into law within 60 days.
This legislative measure reflects Italy’s commitment to further improve its environmental protection framework in response to the execution of the Cannavacciuolo and Others pilot judgment. The case concerns the systemic, decade-long, and widespread phenomenon of dumping, burying or burning of waste on private land, often carried out by organised criminal groups, in the parts of the Campania region known as the Terra dei Fuochi (violation of Article 2 of the Convention).
