How to determine fining behaviour in court? Game theoretical and empirical analysis

We build a structural model to understand the fine set in court, which is described as the outcome of a two-stage game between defendant, public prosecutor and judge. The equilibrium fine depends on the harm caused, the costs to society and the probalility that the quilty party is punished. This fine influences the severity of prosecution and the defence expenditures. Next we empirically analyse the fines pronounced by the Court of Appeal in Ghent (Belgium) for water related criminal offences. We investigate whether the seriousness of the violation and past convictions, as well as some other characteristics, increase the penalty.

Using emission standards under incomplete compliance

Using the case study of water pollution in the Flemish textile industry, we discuss three empirical questions concerning the use of emission standards. We find that the Becker result ("maximal fine / minimal inspection") does not hold if we include rule making, implementation and enforcement costs into the model. There is a balance between the fine and the inspection variables. Making enforcement more stringent does not mean to put the fine levels as high as possible and only then increase the inspections. We have also shown that is extremely important to have correct estimates of people's willingness to pay for environmental improvement. These WTP estimates determine in great part the optimal environmental strategy and its associated optimal monitoring and enforcement policy. Moreover, it really pays off to optimise the monitoring and enforcement strategy associated with an emission standard. This optimisation does not necessarily mean that monitoring and enforcement should be as stringent as possible. It is often possible to obtain the desired result by some intermediate value of the monitoring and enforcement parameters. This is due to the balancing of costs and benefits associated with monitoring and enforcement.Environmental Law; Illegal behaviour; Enforcement of Law

Judicial policy lines in the criminal sanctioning of environmental offenses: an empirical study.

We analyze judicial policy lines concerning criminal environmental sanctioning using a unique European dataset of individual criminal cases, including case-specific information on offenses and offenders. We investigate policy choices made by criminal judges in lower courts as well as the relevant court of appeal. The sanctioning policy of judges proofs to be varied as well as consistent. Judges decide to postpone convictions for cases they deem less important. They carefully balance effective and suspended sanctions, in general using them as substitutes, but in specific cases opting to use them cumulatively. Overall, judges in lower courts balance environmental and classic criminal law and aim at protecting individuals and their possessions as well as the environment.

Sanctioning of environmental crime in the European Union : the case of Flanders, Belgium

© 2018, Springer Science+Business Media B.V., part of Springer Nature. The development of the criminal sanctioning track in the EU is a prominent policy issue. Studies of the actual use of criminal sanctions in the member states are very important since the gap between the law and practice can be very wide. Policy makers and law enforcers are confronted with a lack of empirical data on the actual use of criminal law to sanction environmental offenses. In this paper, we use information stored in the Environmental LawForce database, which is a database of environmental sanctioning by criminal courts in Flanders, Belgium. The study distinguishes three types of offenders: companies, individuals prosecuted for acts committed as part of their professional activities, and individuals prosecuted for acts committed as part of their private lives. Based on previous theoretical insights, we investigate when we expect the environmental sanctions to be similar or different across the three groups of offenders. In particular, we assess the differences and similarities across the sanctioning of environmental offenses committed by companies, professional individuals and private individuals in Flanders.status: publishe

A phase III randomized-controlled, single-blind trial to improve quality of life with stereotactic body radiotherapy for patients with painful bone metastases (ROBOMET)

Background Bone metastases represent an important source of morbidity in cancer patients, mostly due to severe pain. Radiotherapy is an established symptomatic treatment for painful bone metastases, however, when conventional techniques are used, the effectiveness is moderate. Stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT), delivering very high doses in a limited number of fractions in a highly conformal manner, could potentially be more effective and less toxic. Methods This is a phase III, randomized-controlled, single-blind, multicenter study evaluating the response rate of antalgic radiotherapy for painful bone metastases and the acute toxicity associated with this treatment. A total of 126 patients will be randomly assigned to receive either the standard schedule of a single fraction of 8.0 Gy delivered through three-dimensional conformal radiotherapy or a single fraction of 20.0 Gy delivered through SBRT. Primary endpoint is pain response at the treated site at 1 month after radiotherapy. Secondary endpoints are pain flare at 24-48-72 h after radiotherapy, duration of pain response, re-irradiation need, acute toxicity, late toxicity, quality of life and subsequent serious skeletal events. In a supplementary analysis, patient-compliance for a paper-and-pencil questionnaire will be compared with an electronic mode. Discussion If a dose-escalated approach within the context of single fraction stereotactic body radiotherapy could improve the pain response to radiotherapy and minimize acute toxicity, this would have an immediate impact on the quality of life for a large number of patients with advanced cancer. Potential disadvantages of this technique include increased pain flare or a higher incidence of radiation-induced fractures. Trial registration: The Ethics committee of the GZA Hospitals (B099201732915) approved this study on September 4th 2018. Trial registered on Clinicaltrials. gov (NCT03831243) on February 5th 2019