Environmental Pollution: Criminal Law Discourse

Abstract

The relevance of the topic is due to the need to increase the effectiveness of criminal law protection of the environment from pollution. The purpose of the article is to develop a scientifically sound approach to interpreting the main constructive features of the components of criminal offenses against the environment, which constitute "pollution torts". Achieving the outlined goal was made possible through the use of a complex of methods of scientific knowledge, in particular, dialectical (for studying all legal phenomena and concepts considered in the work, in the unity and contradiction of their opposites), hermeneutic (for interpreting the constructive features of the corpus delicti of land, air, water pollution), formal-logical (for determining the mechanism of unlawful encroachment), systemic-structural (for substantiating the need for holistic criminal law protection of abiotic components of the environment from pollution), comparative law (for analyzing current and prospective criminal law norms). The constructive features of the corpus delicti of “pollution torts”, the interpretation of which positions of scientists remain inconsistent, are highlighted, and an own approach is formed. It is substantiated that pollution as such is not criminally punishable until the level of such pollution becomes critical. It is proved that the indication of special rules, the violation of which caused environmental pollution, determines the definition of the subject of such torts as special. The position on the recognition of substances with which the subject pollutes the environment as instruments of committing an offense is supported. It is argued that the subjective side of “pollution torts” is characterized by a complex form of guilt or negligence. In the case of an intentional attitude to the derived consequences, it is proposed to incriminate not the “pollution tort”, but another criminal offense, the nature of the public danger of which corresponds to the direction of intent. The relevant novelties of the prospective criminal law were analyzed in comparison with the current norms, innovations were highlighted that eliminate most of the debatable issues identified during the study and deserve implementation.