On 31 October 2025, the Sino-German Legal Cooperation Programme of GIZ, commissioned by the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), organised a training course on German environmental criminal law as well as criminal law foundations of domestic violence and sexual criminal law, in cooperation with the Supreme People’s Procuratorate. The course formed part of a multi-day training programme held at the branch campus of the National Prosecutors’ College in Kunming, Yunnan Province. The training enhanced the participants’ understanding of the fundamental principles of German environmental criminal law and highlighted its key role in protecting global public goods such as the climate, ecosystems and natural resources. At the same time, the course underscored that the criminal law provisions on domestic and sexual violence constitute an essential instrument for the protection of women and contribute directly to the promotion of gender equality.
First, Public Prosecutor Vanessa Schork of the Munich II Public Prosecutor’s Office explained in her presentation the central structures and legal foundations of German environmental criminal law. She began by outlining the statutory provisions of Sections 324 et seq. of the German Criminal Code (StGB), which govern the protection of water, soil and air as well as the prosecution of illegal waste disposal. She highlighted that environmental offences in Germany are predominantly designed as abstract endangerment offences and may be committed either intentionally or negligently. She went on to describe the specific evidentiary challenges in environmental criminal proceedings, particularly the significant role of technical and scientific expert reports. In addition, she explained the close cooperation between public prosecutors and environmental authorities, as well as the importance of corporate compliance structures for determining criminal liability within companies. Finally, she addressed the practical challenges in prosecuting environmental offences — including complex technical facts, lengthy investigation periods, and the need for interdisciplinary expertise.
Subsequently, Public Prosecutor Leonie Wissing-Jung from the Public Prosecutor’s Office Würzburg presented the key criminal law frameworks in Germany for addressing domestic violence and sexual offences. She began by explaining the relevant offences under the German Criminal Code that are closely connected to domestic violence, including threats, simple and aggravated bodily harm, abuse of persons under protection, as well as offences covered by the Protection Against Violence Act. She then introduced the core offences in the area of sexual criminal law, such as sexual harassment, sexual abuse of children (both contact and non-contact offences), sexual assault, coercion, and rape. In doing so, she outlined the protected legal interests, the objective criteria used to determine sexual acts, and the stricter sentencing standards that have applied since 2021. Finally, she described the procedural particularities of such cases, including the right to refuse testimony, audio-visual recording of the interrogation, as well as key victim-protection instruments such as accessory prosecution and psychosocial trial support.
As the event progressed, a lively and substantive discussion unfolded. Particular interest was shown in the central role of the opportunity principle in German prosecutorial practice, which allows cases to be discontinued under certain conditions and thereby enables resources to be focused on matters of greater significance. The participants also discussed the forms of cooperation between administrative authorities and public prosecutors within the framework of the so-called “administrative–criminal linkage,” which plays an important role in practical law enforcement. In addition, they addressed the specific challenges of evidence gathering in environmental criminal cases, especially the reliance on technical expert opinions and interdisciplinary expertise. The German side further expressed strong interest in understanding how investigations in cases of domestic violence and sexual offences are organized in China, what specific role the public prosecution service plays within the Chinese system, and to what extent prosecutors conduct investigations themselves or supervise them.