Green Victimology

Green or ecological victimology is a branch of Green criminology which emerged with a critical origin of the criminal justice system to oppose the classic victimology in 1990s. While classic victimology considers human as victim, the green one, by going beyond this approach, holds that human and nature and its components including water, air, soil, earth, trees, plants, animals, and certainly future generations could be green victims. As a result, there are two of philosophical and legal approaches which might be applied. The philosophical one which discusses intrinsic value asks if the environment could be recognized as a victim or not. There are two answers; being anthropocentric, nature is regarded as a human right, meaning that only human could be green victims. However, the nature-oriented approach puts human and nature in the same level and believes that nature could also be green victim. In addition to the philosophical approach, there is the legal approach which, apart from the philosophical point of view, identifies green victims by the means of law. This study attempts to identify the green victims and explain the range of legal protections for green victims and the challenges which are ahead.