Criminal law and environmental protection: real potential and limited capabilities in the context of modern environmental crises

Abstract

Environmental crimes statistically comprise an insignificant portion in overall crime structure, based on the number of reported cases and settled cases; the level of their latency remains high. The traditional types of offences, such as unlawful logging, hunting, extraction of water bio resources, prevail within the Russian registered cases of environmental crime, although their latency is undoubted. The vast majority of instances of criminal environmental pollution (water, atmosphere, marine environment, soil), violations of rules in handling environmentally hazardous substances and waste are not recorded, and thus do not receive due legal assessment. Currently, there is a wide variety of threats to the environment, environmental rights and interests, life and health, public and territorial security, which are complex in their structure, causes, consequences, and dynamics, and often interrelated with other social and economic factors. Among most urgent and large-scale threats, the author determines climate change, world ocean waters pollution, decline in biodiversity, wildfires, and in the long view – pollution of near-earth space environment. Environmental experts actively discuss the means for preventing such threats, including legal ones. Criminal law should also contribute to this activity.