Social science research has documented the quantitative weakness of environmental litigation, which accounts for no more than 1% of cases heard in criminal courts. However, recent laws have strengthened the criminal response to environmental damage, and criminal law is a potentially powerful lever for state action. In terms of the environment, do criminal penalties set “examples” In environmental matters, do criminal sanctions set “examples” by gradually promoting the spread of self-monitoring provisions that meet new standards? Do they help to shape an “environmental order” that has so far been essentially discursive? The objective of Transi(sanc)tions is precisely to examine the contrasting effects of criminal sanctions in the context of the ecological transition of French society through a mixed analysis, combining quantitative objectification of environmental litigation and a series of qualitative case studies.
