Case Explained: Environmental Crime in North Macedonia and Serbia Too Often Unpunished – Legal Perspective

In Serbia, just 19 per cent of environmental crime complaints between 2020 and 2022 resulted in indictments, according to a 2024 study by the United Nations Development Programme, UNDP.

“With the exception of the criminal offence of forest theft, an inordinately high percentage of filed criminal complaints are dismissed,” the UNDP found. Those that do reach court and end in conviction invariably result in suspended sentences or fines close to the legal minimum.

The data show that the most common environmental crime in Serbia is forest theft, accounting for 84 per cent of such crimes, followed by the killing and intentional abuse of animals.

The 2024 UNDP report found that “citizens and civic associations formed in pursuit of environmental protection goals appear in a very small (negligible) number of cases” and highlighted the need for additional training for police and prosecutors in evidence collection and drafting criminal complaints.

In its most recent report on Serbia’s accession progress, in 2025, the European Commission found that no progress had been made in terms of public participation and consultation processes nor transboundary cooperation in the field of the environment, and called for further capacity building.

While it noted a rise in the number of inspections and issuance of offences, the report said that “alignment with the [EU’s] Environmental Liability Directive remains at an early stage, while alignment with the Environmental Crime Directive and its implementation needs to be improved”.

Predrag Dzamic, a lawyer in Serbia specialising in environmental law, said the way in which certain environmental crimes are worded in the law often makes them difficult to prove.

“This fact significantly complicates the work of the competent public prosecutors in these cases, as the burden of proving guilt lies with the prosecution,” Dzamic told BIRN.

He added: “The penal policy in the field of environmental crime is not satisfactory, given that the penalties are still low and do not act as a deterrent to potential perpetrators of criminal acts.”

Suspended sentences are also the norm in North Macedonia.

According to data from the Centre for Legal Research and Analysis, court practice in North Macedonia in 2025 continues to rely predominantly on lenient sanctions for environmental crime. Out of a total of 65 sanctions imposed for criminal offences against the environment and nature, 70 per cent resulted in suspended sentences, while 26 per cent ended with monetary fines.

Only one per cent of cases led to an effective prison sentence, and an additional one per cent to a suspended sentence with probation supervision; two per cent of cases were dismissed or resulted in acquittal.

Illegal fishing emerged as one of the most frequent offences (16 cases), alongside usurpation of real estate (49 cases) and crimes involving the killing and torture of animals (14 cases), while serious environmental offences and environmental pollution remained marginally represented in court rulings.

North Macedonia has a law on ‘nature protection’ dating to 2018 and updated in 2021, 2022 and 2025, but campaigners say it still falls short and should be replaced.

Biologist Bogoljub Sterijovski, a member of the Ecological Justice Platform, an umbrella body of institutions, NGOs and experts in North Macedonia created with European funding, said: “Our country has biodiversity values, but this requires that there be indications in a new Law on Nature and that it become a basis on which action can be taken in the future to meet the goals for overall nature protection.”

Katerina Topalova contributed reporting to this article from Skopje, North Macedonia.

This article was published as part of the Spheres of Influence Uncovered project.