Legal Protection of the Black Sea in Ukraine in the Context of European integration

Abstract

The article is devoted to basic environmental and legal issues to protect the aquatic environment of the Black Sea in Ukraine. The author analyzes the critical environmental situation of the Black Sea pollution with plastic and other hazardous chemical waste, which adversely affects the lives and health of people and marine animals. We study the legislative support of the Black Sea at both the national and international levels. Much attention in the article is paid to the environmental block of the International Association Agreement between Ukraine and the EU, which was concluded in 2014. This legal document provides a complete list of requirements that must be met by our state in the legal field for the successful reform of water relations at the national level. These include the development and adoption of the Marine Environmental Strategy of Ukraine, a new National Program for the Protection of the Black and Azov Seas, updated State Standards of Ukraine, which would unify the terminology by Directive 2008/56 / EU on the use and protection of water in Ukraine. This normative legal act obliges at the national and local levels to adopt appropriate programs that would ensure the protection of the seas, as well as to reform the national water management system of Ukraine. First of all, this article assumes towards improving the state mechanism keeping the state water cadastre as a component of the implementation of good governance of water resources of the country. The author in his work emphasizes the need for a single government agency to keep the state water cadastre, ensuring optimization of public administration in the field of relationships and reduce duplication of functions related institutions. This leading public body should be the State Service of Ukraine for Surveying, Mapping, and Cadastre. Secondly, the article examines the draft Law of Ukraine «On State Environmental Control» № 3091 of 19.02.2020, which changes the structure and functional responsibilities of state management of the water fund of Ukraine. According to the scientist, the final stage in the development of water relations in our country should be the adoption of a new Water Code of Ukraine, which would reflect and guarantee the basic principles of European water law.