The development of technology and expertise to track suspect shipments, accompanied by information on specific production sources can significantly improve enforcement efforts. It has been observed that there is an enormous potential of new technology, expertise, and practices in this area.
The Royal Institute for International Affairs (RIIA) observed in its Report on International Environmental Crime that:
There are many new technologies that can make a big difference to the burden of national and international enforcement. Compliance and inspection methodologies such as Vessel Monitoring Systems and fine-scale satellite monitoring of forestry concessions have the potential to move the marginal benefit curve of monitoring downwards by lowering costs. Forensic science could also play a vital role in gathering evidence and identifying illegal materials, for this to be the case, it is important to treat environmental crime scenes much as other crime scenes and allow for detailed investigations. DNA fingerprinting and more traditional skills such as anatomic and morphological biology have proved vital in distinguishing contraband such as shahtoosh and toothfish fillets from look-alike products. DNA test kits can also be made available to enforcement operatives to enable simple point-of-contact tests. Microtaggant and chemical tracers, barcodes, radio frequency identification (RF/ID) tags and transponders may allow real-time inventory and monitoring of shipments. Some of these tracking techniques, especially UV-dye or transponder tracing, have also been used to track contraband in undercover operations and detect where such materials are laundered into legitimate commerce.
(Source: Gavin Hayman & Duncan Brack, International Environmental Crime: The Nature and Control of Environmental Black Markets – Workshop Report (RIIA 2002), available at http://europa.eu.int/
comm/environment/crime/env_crime_workshop.pdf)
Illegal shipments of restricted substances, species, or objects pose a considerable challenge to enforcement efforts. Exchanging information on such shipments, developing procedures for returning or destroying their contents, and creating confidential channels of communications regarding such shipments are all measures that call for international cooperation.
The Green Customs Initiative and the Lusaka Agreement Task Force (LATF) both try to build capacity of officials to identify and interdict illegal shipments. These are described in case studies following Guidelines 33(f)
and 48 (as well as 43), respectively. The TIGERS database developed by CITES to manage information on illegal international trade in listed wildlife species is described in a case study following Guideline 48(c). Following Guideline 34(c), there is a case study on the WCO Customs Enforcement Network. On customs institutions generally, see Guideline 41(b) and accompanying text.
For additional information on the use of remote sensing, satellite images, and other emerging technologies, see also text following Guideline 41(a)(ii).