Research
Research perspective
I study how criminal law and criminology respond to damage affecting ecosystems, marine life, and the communities connected to them. My work brings legal analysis into conversation with ecological evidence.
Environmental harm does not always fit neatly into legal definitions of crime. Damage to an ecosystem can accumulate over time, involve several activities, and become visible only after ecological conditions have changed. A response focused solely on individual offences may miss these wider processes.
My research asks what criminal law can do in these circumstances, where its limits lie, and how criminology can help identify harms that remain outside formal definitions of illegality. I approach these questions through green and blue criminology, environmental criminal law, ecological law, and marine ecology.
I am particularly interested in the relationship between legal categories and ecological realities: how harm is measured, whose interests are protected, what counts as evidence, and which forms of accountability or restoration are possible.
Research interests
Green and blue criminology
I examine environmental crime and harm on land and at sea, including marine pollution, illegal fishing, biodiversity loss, and the effects of human activity on coastal and ocean ecosystems.
Environmental criminal law and ecocide
This work considers how criminal law defines ecological damage and protects ecosystems. It includes research on environmental offences, ecocentric interpretations of legal interests, and proposals concerning ecocide as an international crime.
Marine ecosystems and environmental evidence
My marine-focused research addresses underwater noise, brine discharges, impacts on Posidonia oceanica, and methods for identifying ecological damage. I am interested in how biological and ecological evidence can inform legal and criminological analysis.
Climate change and planetary boundaries
I explore how climate change and planetary boundaries challenge established approaches to criminal policy, environmental protection, security, and responsibility for socioecological harm.
Ecological and restorative justice
This line of work considers ecosystems as affected entities and asks what meaningful repair, prevention, and accountability might look like after environmental harm.
Selected projects
CRIMICLIMA
A criminological analysis of the effectiveness of environmental criminal policy in the context of the climate emergency. The UJI research-centre record includes the project under code UJI-2023-02.
Ocean Crime Narratives
A study of the narratives through which environmental crime and harm at sea have been understood and represented. My profile is listed on the project’s team page.
Blue Governance Laboratory (BlueGovLab)
An interdisciplinary laboratory connecting research on ocean governance, environmental protection, marine biodiversity, environmental security, and public policy.
Aula IbizaPreservation de Criminalidad Azul
A collaboration focused on marine environmental harm in Ibiza and Formentera through research, training, public engagement, and knowledge exchange.
Methods and collaboration
My work combines legal and case-law analysis with criminological approaches to environmental harm. It also engages with ecological indicators, marine research, and forms of evidence that can help describe damage beyond the boundaries of a single legal case.
These questions require collaboration across disciplines. I work with researchers in law, criminology, marine ecology, environmental science, and related fields, as well as with organisations concerned with the protection of marine and coastal environments.
Research outputs
My publications address underwater noise, marine pollution, environmental criminal law, ecocide, Posidonia oceanica, climate change, planetary boundaries, and green and blue criminology.
A broader institutional record of my research outputs is available through my UJI research profile .
Public research materials include the open dataset Jurisprudencia sobre el Delito Ecológico en España (2015–2024): Análisis de Sentencias del Artículo 325 del Código Penal en la Base de Datos CENDOJ .
Additional datasets and open research materials are listed in the UJI research-data portal .