Giorgi Matiashvili - Environmental crimes in a transnational context. Topical issues of international environmental disputes as a risk of threat to the world legal order

The international legal objects, the impact on which occurs from the territories of individual states, include: the atmospheric environment, inland waters, flora and fauna.

The atmospheric environment is the common property of humankind. The main harmful impact on the atmosphere occurs from the territories of individual states by such types of their activities as:

Sulfur emission into the atmosphere, generating acid rains.

Emissions of carbon dioxide facilitating to the growth of the greenhouse effect.

The use and leakage of chemicals that destroy the ozone layer of the Earth.

The leakage of radioactive substances into the atmosphere.

Inland waters are the waters of rivers and lakes, which are located on the territory of individual states, but are objects of international environmental law. Rivers, or rather water streams, which are understood as a system of surface and ground waters forming a single channel, have attracted the attention of the international community for two reasons. First, some rivers flow through the territory of two or more states (international rivers). Secondly, the waters of the rivers somehow end up in international waters. Some lakes are subject to international legal protection in connection with their classification as a world natural heritage (for example, Lake Baikal, Lake Loman). The international community is trying to protect fresh water system of international importance from the following types of pollution:

1. Detergents used in washing and cleaning agents,

2. Contamination with chlorides used in water disinfection,

3. Dumping of oil and oil products.

As an example of the international protection of this object, we can cite the environmental disaster in Romania on January 31, 2000, when, as a result of an accident at the “АУРУЛ” gold mining enterprise in the Carpathians, almost 100,000 cubic meters of water with a high cyanide content fell into the Tisza River, and from it to the Danube. Only in the first two days after the accident in river Tisza, 80% of fish stocks died.

According to experts, it will take at least 10 years to restore the ecological balance of the river Tisza. Hungary has filed a claim in international courts for damages to the environment and public health. Fauna and flora are classified as a mixed object of legal regulation, since they are affected both from the territory of individual states and beyond. International protection concerns: endangering and rare species of flora and fauna, emigratory species of animals, nature in certain regions. There are a number of specific areas of cooperation between states in this field:

1. Protection of plant kingdom: protection of plants, quarantine of plants and their protection from pests and diseases, protection of tropical tissue;

2. Protection of specific animal species: Atlantic seals, Atlantic tunas, polar bears, listed in the Red List of Threatened and rare species of animals;

3. Protection of habitats: wetlands, habitats of migrant birds.

International legal objects, the impact on which occurs from an international territory or from a territory with a mixed regime.

These are space and the World Ocean, which are objects of the common heritage of humankind, the use of nature for military purposes.

The World Ocean – is an ecosystem capable of processing a huge amount of organic substances (in the concept of the “World Ocean”, we mean both the waters of the oceans themselves and the waters of the seas). A sharp increase in the number of discharges of waste products of humankind, their chemical composition, placed in jeopardy the mechanism of self-purification of the World Ocean that had been formed for thousands of years. Environmental law prohibits or restricts releasing into the World Ocean of the following substances:

1) Oil and oil products.

Their long decay period and spread over large surfaces represents particular danger. So, in November 2002, the tanker “Prestige” sank in the coasts of Spain, and more than 500 kilometers of the coast were poisoned with oil. The Prime Minister of Spain stated, that the country faces the largest ecological disaster in its history. The generated oil patches were not liquidated for a long time, causing significant damage to the aquatic biological resources of the Atlantic.

2) Synthetic products

This includes all types of plastic materials, including synthetic ropes, fishing nets, and plastic bags for trash. Their danger is in their exceptional floatability.

3) Poisonous substances

Substances containing organochlorine compounds, quicksilver, cadmium and materials for biological and chemical warfare.

4) Radioactive materials

International environmental law restricts dumping and disposal of radioactive waste material.

Outer space

Outer Space – means the space, located outside the earth atmosphere. The economic use of outer space is still limited by the technical capabilities of humankind. Though, the international community has already faced the problem of protecting the above-mentioned object from the so-called “space rubbish”. Its accumulation in near-Earth orbits (adjacent space) can make it impossible for mankind to go further into outer space. Although, it is impossible to do without the use of nuclear energy in space exploration, international environmental law limits the testing of nuclear weapons in outer space. In this regard, the ecological immunity of some outer space objects has been established.

The ecological immunity of some objects of outer space is withdrawal from economic activity of objects that are the common property of mankind. In relation to space, environmental immunity extends to such a celestial body as the Moon.

Objects of the common heritage of humankind

Objects of the common heritage of humankind are territories that are not under the sovereignty of any state and having environmental immunity. These include: Antarctic and the Moon.

The public danger of ecological crimes lies in the fact that it encroaches on a person through nature, through the destruction or qualitative deterioration of the biological basis of his/her existence. Some European countries have joined to the Convention “On the Protection of the Environment” through the criminal legislation that they have developed in their country.

Ecological crimes are criminal infringements on environmental safety, that is, the safety of the surrounding natural environment as a condition and means of human habitation and living organisms, and, in principle, their survival.

That is, ecological crimes violate the human right to a healthy ambient environment.

The specific object of this group of crimes is public relations for the rational use of natural resources, the preservation of a natural environment favorable for human-beings and other living beings and the provision of environmental law and order and the safety of the population.

The direct objects of the ecological crimes are public relations for the protection and rational use of certain types of natural resources and ensuring the environmental safety of the population.

Based on the direct object, ecological crimes are divided into two types.

1) Ecological crimes are of a general nature. They encroach on nature as a whole. These include:

– Violation of the rules of environmental protection in the course of work;

– Violation of the rules for the handling of environmentally hazardous substances and waste;

– Violation of safety rules when handling microbiological or other biological agents or toxins;

– Violation of veterinary rules and the rules, established for the control of plant diseases and pests;