On Improving Criminal Law Norms That Establish Liability for the Pollution of Marine Environment (Art. 252 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation)

Abstract

The article is devoted to the problems of criminal-legal counteraction to marine pollution. The authors note (on the basis of modern statistical data) that Article 252 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation that establishes liability for the pollution of the marine environment is used very rarely, which is due, inter alia, to its design flaws. The methodological basis for the study was traditionally the dialectical method, while the collection and processing of scientifically significant results were carried out with the help of formal-legal, comparative-legal and statistical methods. The material of the study was the regulatory legal acts regulating liability for pollution of the marine environment, as well as materials of judicial practice, including foreign jurisprudence. The authors investigated modern positions on the definition of the nature of the object of encroachment for the pollution of the marine environment. The article also contains an analysis of the concept of «pollution», on the basis of which the authors came to the conclusion that it is not advisable to supplement this definition with such language constructs as «contamination of the marine environment» or «introduction of organisms into the marine environment», although this is suggested by some scholars. The authors give an assessment of the dependence of the public danger of an act on the form of mens rea, which raises the question of the need for detailed instructions regarding the form of mens rea in Art. 252 of the Criminal Code of Russian Federation. Qualification problems of the marine environment pollution with aggravating circumstances, related to determining the criteria for causing harm to human health, have been identified. The solution to these problems proposed by the authors is based on a rethinking of the role of the environment and its impact on human health by «green criminology». The result of the work is the definition of the object of encroachment on the marine environment that takes into account the economic value of the environment. In order to overcome these problems, the authors propose a new version of Art. 252 of the Criminal Code, specifically, provisions for the differentiation of responsibility depending on the form of guilt and expansion of the list of socially dangerous consequences, the onset of which is necessary for the imputation of a qualified crime.