THE PROBLEM OF DETERMINING PRIORITIES OF ECOLOGICAL AND LEGAL PROTECTION: NATURE AND HUMAN HEALTH AS OBJECTS OF LEGAL

Abstract

The paper is devoted to the problematic issues of the legal regulation of nature protection activities in the Russian Federation. The author notes that a sharp deterioration of the ecological situation indicates a crisis of the previously existing paradigm of human-environmental interaction. Therefore, the situation requires full-scale measures within the state's environmental strategy. However, the change of the environmental state policy as a whole and the improvement of the legal mechanism of environmental relations in particular encounters a number of theoretical and practical problems, which have not been solved. The author pays attention to the problem of determining the priorities of environmental and legal protection, which is very important in the process of establishing the optimal ratio in the "human-nature" relations. The result of solving the problems influences the objectives of the state environmental policy, as well as the objectives of the Environmental Safety Strategy. The author analyzes the main aspect of the considered problem, the essence of which is ambiguity of the fundamental object in ecological relations. It is noted that today there are two points of view on this issue in the Russian legal science. According to the first one, the object of legal protection is exclusively environmental interests of a man. Accordingly, the protection of nature must be carried out exclusively in the interests of his life and health. Supporters of the second point of view believe that the nature as a whole should be a priority in legal protection. The author notes that the choice of a particular conceptual position (and, accordingly, the priority of environmental and legal protection) depends on the world outlook on the role and place of a man in the world. At the same time, problems of a technical and legal nature, connected with internal logic and subordination of legal norms regulating ecological relations worsen the situation. The author concludes that there are internal contradictions in the mechanism of legal protection of the environment.