There is a need to establish institutions by law with clear mandates and responsibilities as well as a need for coordination mechanisms among environmental sectors.
Environmental Prosecutor Offices
In order to ensure that environmental offences are investigated and prosecuted, many States have established public prosecutor offices with a specific environmental mandate. These offices have the benefit that they are specially trained, funded, and charged with pursuing environmental violations and offences. Moreover, experience has shown that 
general prosecutor offices often are overwhelmed by murders, rapes, organised crime, and other violent crimes — and often are not enthusiastic about devoting scarce resources to environmental violations and offences. A specialised environmental public prosecutor office can provide an institution that ensures that environmental wrongs are prosecuted.
One approach to environmental prosecutor offices is Russia’s Inter-regional environmental protection public prosecutor offices. These offices have responsibility for several administrative-territorial units and are organised along the lines of water basins.
To promote effective case preparation and presentation, some environmental prosecutor offices have prepared guidelines for their attorneys to follow (see for example, the case study on “Guidelines for Prosecuting and Hearing Environmental Cases in Uganda” following Guideline 41(d)
). Indeed, the specialised nature of such offices sometimes means that the offices are called upon to prepare similar guidelines for judges to hear environmental cases or to build the capacity of inspectors, judges, and other officers involved in environmental cases.
In establishing and operating specialised environmental prosecutor offices, there are some potential problems that may need to be addressed. In some States, environmental prosecutors have not actually developed environmental cases that could be presented to the courts; instead, they were simply another layer of control and ultimately an administrative burden. In these instances, the environmental prosecutors are relegated to providing a secondary inspection and a form of appeal mechanism.
Designation of Responsibilities for Monitoring and Evaluation
A key factor to providing environmental protection is assuring compliance by the regulated community with environmental laws and regulations through effective monitoring and compliance assessment. Unless there is compliance with the requirements that are designed to provide the necessary environmental protection, the promulgation of laws and regulations may have little impact.
The Vocabulary of Compliance Monitoring
Compliance monitoring consists of a wide range of activities in six basic categories, which may overlap.
- Surveillance is generally a pre-inspection activity which consists of obtaining general site information prior to actually entering the facility. This may include observations of activity at the site or informal sampling;
- Inspections (on site) may include record reviews, observations, sampling, interviews, etc., and may be single or multi-media, facility or industry sector-based, or have a geographic or ecosystem focus;
- Investigations are generally more comprehensive than inspections and may be warranted when an inspection or record review suggests the potential for serious, widespread, and/or continuing civil or criminal violations;
- Record reviews may be conducted at the lead agency headquarters, regional or local offices, or at the facility, and may or may not be combined with fieldwork. Records may be derived from routine self-monitoring requirements, inspection reports, citizen/employee tips, or remote sensing;
- Targeted information gathering may be used to provide or acquire more accurate information on the status of compliance and/or environmental conditions;
- Compliance monitoring of work required by regulation, permit, order or settlement includes ensuring timely submissions, review of submittals for adequacy and oversight of remedial activities.
Elements of these activities may include sampling, sample analysis, observations, issuance of information requirement letters or subpoenas, and ensuring data quality. (Source: United States EPA).
Compliance monitoring usually focuses on actions to:
- Determine compliance with applicable laws, regulations, permit conditions, orders, and settlement agreements;
- Review and evaluate the activities of the regulated community; and
- Determine whether or not conditions presenting imminent and substantial endangerment may exist.