Environmental victimology is founded on the principles of the UN Declaration on Victims of Crime and Abuse of Power (1985). A victimology perspective stems from individual rights and prevention of, and redress for, personal injury. It relates both to conventional victimology and the so-called 'radical victimology' which more broadly embraces any form of human suffering.
As new forms of environmental victimisation emerge, and traditional criminals turn to environmental crime, environmental victimology will address prescient questions: defining and identifying 'environmental victims'; the moral and legal status of the unborn victim; victim participation; multiple, indirect and time-latent causation; cross-border victimisation; environmental blackmail; the costs of environmental victimisation.