Tackling Environmental Crimes in Russia: Problems and Prospects from the Viewpoint of Building an Environmental and Legal Culture

Abstract

The author presents a brief historical overview of the institute of environmental-legal liability in Russian and foreign legislation and examines the relevance of introducing the concept of environmental-legal liability; the author also analyzes the discussion on including in Russian and foreign legislation a system of criminal law liability measures for crimes connected with the use of natural resources and environmental protection. The author examines views of Russian and foreign authors on the process of building environmental legislation and notes that it faces various problems. The greatest problem is that the public conscience is not ready for criminal law prohibitions in the environmental sphere, which leads to a high number of offences, the inability of law enforcement bodies to effectively use criminal law measures against people who have violated the nature protection legislation, the latent character of this group of crimes, the absence of unity and consistency in the actions of lawmakers, especially regarding the adoption of environmental normative legal acts at different levels. The author suggests replacing some concepts and norms used in Russian criminal legislation and changing the classification of environmental crimes. He uses the methods of comparative law to analyze the experience of creating a codified normative legal act in the sphere of nature protection. The author concludes that it is too early now to adopt an environmental code in Russia, that the legal system is not ready to build the institute of environmental legal liability and that it is necessary to develop environmental legislation through the traditional method – by including the corresponding rules in the acts of different branches of law. He examines the correlation between the existing administrative and criminal legal prohibitions and concludes that in some cases such prohibitions merge in public consciousness. The author states that the object of crime in the sphere of environmental protection is often multifaceted and complex. He presents the results of a sociological study and concludes that it is necessary to build a system of criminal law prohibitions that corresponds to the public needs and the existing level of legal culture of the people.