The issue of the strengthening public role in making environmentally significant decisions at the international and national level, with special reference to Russian legislation

Abstract

In the 21st century new environmental threats ignoring states’ borders have appeared. They include the negative impact of nanotechnologies on the environment, the interference in hydro-meteorological processes and some others. The subject of this research is the effect of international and national regulations, court decisions and other law enforcement practices on the field of public participation in making environmental decisions. The purpose of this paper is to formulate the measures for further development of the public participation principle and improvement of the legal protection of the environment as a whole. As a result, key terms, international and national acts, individual problems of enforcement are characterized. Based on the analysis of national legislation and EU directives the authors justify the necessity to develop the international instruments governing intervention in natural processes, and interpret a number of environmental evaluation and legal categories.