{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,11,4]],"date-time":"2026-11-04T23:40:39Z","timestamp":1793835639958,"version":"4.6.1"},"update-to":[{"DOI":"10.12688\/openreseurope.24170.1","type":"new_version","label":"New version","source":"publisher","updated":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,17]],"date-time":"2026-09-17T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1789603200000}}],"reference-count":38,"publisher":"CERN","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,17]],"date-time":"2026-09-17T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1789603200000},"content-version":"unspecified","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"name":"European Commission","award":["101043711"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["101043711"]}],"id":[{"id":"https:\/\/ror.org\/00k4n6c32","id-type":"ROR","asserted-by":"publisher"}]},{"name":"CRIMICLIMA - An\u00e1lisis criminol\u00f3gico de la eficacia de la pol\u00edtica criminal medioambiental frente a la emergencia clim\u00e1tica","award":["GrantagreementNo.UJI-2023-02"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["GrantagreementNo.UJI-2023-02"]}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Open Res Europe"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Environmental criminal law frequently relies on open-textured threshold concepts such as \u201csubstantial damage, \u201c \u201cserious harm, \u201c and \u201cserious risk\u201d to distinguish administrative unlawfulness from criminally relevant conduct. Yet courts often apply these thresholds without a reproducible framework for structuring ecological seriousness across cases. This article introduces LEDAT \u00ae (Legal-Ecological Damage Assessment Tool), a structured coding framework that combines legal and ecological variables into a Material Environmental Criminal Damage Index (IDPAm), while distinguishing material seriousness from procedural and evidential enforceability. IDPAm measures the material legal-ecological seriousness of a case as structured by the framework; it does not measure criminal liability, ecological damage alone, or the likelihood of conviction. The framework is piloted on 36 Spanish first-instance environmental crime judgments issued between 2020 and 2025, identified through a systematic search of a national jurisprudential database followed by qualitative screening. Cases were independently coded by two trained researchers using a shared coding manual and reconciled after comparison; pending formal agreement measures, coding convergence is reported as descriptive. IDPAm values ranged from 0.7 to 9.3. Most cases fell within predominantly administrative or intermediate grey-area bands, while four reached high material criminal significance. Convictions showed higher descriptive IDPAm values than acquittals, although distributions overlapped substantially and eleven of twenty convictions were conformity-based. Sensitivity checks indicate high ordinal stability under alternative legal\/ecological weights, while trigger removal affects band classification. The article makes no predictive, causal, or inferential claims. Its contribution is methodological: LEDAT offers a transparent, contestable, and reproducible framework for empirical analysis of environmental criminal thresholds.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.12688\/openreseurope.24170.2","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,17]],"date-time":"2026-09-17T06:09:07Z","timestamp":1789625347000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.68336\/openreseurope.updatepolicy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":1,"title":["Ecological harm and criminal thresholds: A pilot legal-ecological coding framework for environmental crime judgments"],"prefix":"10.68336","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-5149-1792","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Esteban","family":"Morelle-Hungr\u00eda","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Public Law, University Jaume I Faculty of Law and Economics, Castell\u00f3n de la Plana, Valencian Community, 12071, Spain"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"13904","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,17]]},"reference":[{"key":"113888","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.56398\/ajacieda.00079"},{"key":"113889","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1257\/jep.32.4.33"},{"key":"113890","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.17345\/rcda3776"},{"key":"113891","unstructured":"Bonorino P, Leal VC: La prueba de la causalidad en el da\u00f1o ambiental. 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Reference Source (https:\/\/www.consilium.europa.eu\/es\/infographics\/eu-fight-environmental-crime-2022\/)"},{"key":"113897","unstructured":"Court of Justice of the European Union: Judgment of the Court (Grand Chamber) of 20 June 2022, London Steam-Ship Owners\u2019 Mutual Insurance Association Limited v Kingdom of Spain, C-700\/20, ECLI:EU:C:2022:488. 2022."},{"key":"113898","unstructured":"Cuerda Arnau ML: La justicia penal nacional frente al ecocidio: David contra Goliat (veinte a\u00f1os desde la cat\u00e1strofe del Prestige). Marullo MC, Pallar\u00e9s LS, Cabot FJZ, Dirs. Empresas transnacionales, derechos humanos y cadenas de valor: nuevos desaf\u00edos. Colex;2023; pp. 167\u2013191."},{"key":"113899","unstructured":"Directive (EU): 2024\/1203 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 April 2024 on the protection of the environment through criminal law and replacing Directives 2008\/99\/EC and 2009\/123\/EC. 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Ad-Hoc;2021."},{"key":"113904","unstructured":"Fuentes Osorio JL: \u00bfPuede ser el derecho penal ambiental eficaz? Revista General de Derecho Penal. 2023; 40."},{"key":"113905","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1177\/1741659017751223"},{"key":"113906","unstructured":"G\u00f3rriz Royo E: Delitos contra los recursos naturales y el medio ambiente. Tirant;2015."},{"key":"113907","unstructured":"Ministerio para la Transici\u00f3n Ecol\u00f3gica: Documento gu\u00eda para la determinaci\u00f3n de la significatividad del da\u00f1o medioambiental en el contexto de la Ley 26\/2007 de responsabilidad medioambiental. Direcci\u00f3n General de Biodiversidad y Calidad Ambiental. 2019. 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