Les sanctions alternatives et complémentaires aux peines classiques en droit de l'environnement : étude comparative (France et Burkina Faso)

Abstract

Damage to the environment constitutes a new type of criminality to which conventional criminal penalties are not always well-suited. For this reason, the legal Systems in France and Burkina Faso have developed several alternative and complementary sanctions in addition to conventional penalties. Some of these sanctions are imposed by the judge in criminal law proceedings. Examples of such approaches include positive obligations to undertake certain actions, such as restoration and work in the public interest : these penalties are clearly useful for environmental protection but are not yet widely applied. Other alternative and complementary sanctions are just as useful : measures such as the loss or restriction of certain rights, advertising measures and confiscation are often imposed in order better to adapt criminal sanctions to the environmental field. The administration also has important powers to impose environmental sanctions, not only through mechanisms for seulement or compromise but also by the occasional imposition of penalties in rem on the offender. However, this can raise problems of cumulative penalties which conflicts with the principle of proportionality in penalty-setting.