If natural ecological systems function steadily, this is a favorable environment, the quality of which can ensure the integrity of all natural objects and man-made. In addition, such an environment is able to satisfy human needs, including aesthetic ones, since the species diversity of nature is preserved. A person must maintain a favorable environment - this is his first duty.
Targets and goals
Preserving a favorable environment is not so easy in modern conditions; technical progress has gone too far, which in relation to nature most often acts ruthlessly. Meeting human needs is becoming increasingly difficult as they grow rapidly. Even at specially protected sites and in protected areas, it is becoming increasingly difficult to create and regulate a special regime. Nature does not have time to recover from human activity.
The state, society and each individual should set themselves the task of creating and maintaining a favorable environment. This is also approved by legislation (Law on the Protection of Nature, Articles 11-14). First of all, this concerns the quality of the natural environment, and the tasks of environmental legislation include ensuring that society and people are surrounded by suitable living conditions. For this, there are numerous criteria, regulations, standards regarding safety indicators, purity, species diversity, and so on.
Human rights
The state is obliged to maintain the right of citizens to a favorable living environment, the negative impact of many factors should be immediately stopped. This is a fundamental right that a person enjoys from his birth to his death, as well as the right to life, to freedom, equality of opportunity and so on, that is, is fundamental.
The right of citizens to a favorable environment from subjective comprehensive rights that underlies life, because it is associated with the presence of normal economic, environmental, aesthetic and other conditions of its existence. Therefore, each person may require timely, reliable and complete information about measures to maintain the normal state of the environment, environmental protection, as well as compensation for damage caused to property or health through the fault of committed environmental offenses.
Legislative support
Since the right of every citizen to a favorable environment is confirmed by the Constitution of the Russian Federation, he has the right to make demands in a judicial or administrative order to annul a decision on the design, location, reconstruction, construction, operation of facilities that could damage his health or property.
The protection of nature is not an end in itself; its main task is to guarantee the observance of the rights that each citizen has to create normal environmental conditions for work, leisure and, in general, the life of the entire population of any region. The right of every person to a favorable environment is a constitutional component, and therefore it is important to assess the state of nature, which indicates danger. It is she who is taken into account in litigation.
Environmental Health Assessment Methods
Judicial practice, considering cases related to the protection of nature and compensation for environmental harm, always uses the testimony of experts who have assessed the health of the environment. The damage caused to nature is assessed through a forensic environmental assessment. This is how a criminal case can be resolved and an environmental crime charged. Thus, the state protects the human right to a favorable environment.
The main difficulties of such processes are that the harm done to human health must be proved. A forensic medical examination is also involved here. The basic right to protection of health must be protected, and for this it is necessary, first of all, to ensure a favorable environment. This is precisely the target in environmental management, and the criterion for assessing the legal nature is the requirements established by law, which all structures, including public and private, must comply with.
Regulations
The quality of the environment must comply with the standards established respectively indicators - physical, chemical, biological and the like. All institutions and enterprises, as well as all citizens are obliged to comply with the standards, the only way to establish and ensure the work of protection for a favorable environment. There is a law of the Russian Federation on nature protection, which explicitly states that the protection and preservation of nature is everyone’s business, and everyone should protect natural resources, which are the basis of the life of the population.
Legal standards regulate the degree of protection from the effects on the human body of biological, physical and chemical factors. The protection of the right to a favorable environment is fairly structured, because this industry is complex, comprehensive, and structuring helps significantly increase the scientific and practical importance of environmental protection. For example, biological pollution and the protection of nature from them are discussed separately in the law "Environmental Protection", in agricultural, sanitary, forestry laws, in the legislation on the animal kingdom, and there is a lot more.
Laws old and new
In April 1996, the President of Russia issued a decree with the concept of the transition to sustainable development, which set tasks based on the documents of the 1992 UN conference regarding the balance between socio-economic development and the preservation of a favorable environment. The Constitution of the Russian Federation incorporated in its new wording many of the postulates of this decree. However, the problems of preserving the natural resource potential have not yet been resolved.
The new law on environmental protection clarifies the standards, which imply state regulation of various kinds of impacts on the environment. The purpose of the new law is to guarantee the preservation of a favorable natural environment and the full provision of environmental safety for the population. The standards of permissible environmental impact presuppose the preservation of its quality.
The rights of citizens
Statutory law implies the protection of health from adverse effects, which must be ensured by the quality of the environment. To do this, there is planning, management, regulation, state control, insurance, compensation for health damage caused by pollution of the environment, as well as other harmful effects.
Any person can participate in various public associations dealing with environmental issues, in movements that defend state guarantees in the field of nature protection. Respect for the rights of a citizen of the Russian Federation to a favorable environment should be ensured within the ecological functions of the government of the country and nature conservation by nature users. For this there are extensive systems of technical, organizational, managerial, economic, educational, scientific and, finally, legal measures.
Examples
For example, it is difficult to overestimate the work of the prosecutor's office in the direction of protecting the rights of citizens. Authorities identified more than seventeen thousand violations of environmental protection laws during the year. A huge number of legal acts were repealed, despite the fact that they were adopted by state authorities in the constituent entities of the Russian Federation.
In the context of the concept of "environment" there are criteria legally relevant, because such a concept is not specifically defined by law. There are standards that make up a clearly structured environmental management system with general requirements for the development of limits. For example, atmospheric air is also the environment surrounding a person. The current law on the protection of atmospheric air has existed separately since 1999, but all the provisions of the general law apply to it in exactly the same way as to the rest of the components of the human environment.
Regulatory system
Environmental quality standards apply to all manifestations of ill-being: maximum permissible concentrations of harmful substances (Article 26), maximum permissible levels of noise, magnetic fields, vibration and other physical influences (Article 28), maximum permissible levels of radiation exposure (Article 29), maximum permissible standards pressure on the environment (Article 33), regulations regarding protective and sanitary zones (Article 34), and so on.
All standards contain qualitative characteristics of the state in which the natural environment is located, and they are primarily aimed at ensuring cleanliness. And this is only one of the characteristics, although the most important.
Environmental Safety
At the present stage of development of society, new concepts have also appeared related to the problems of nature conservation. For example, environmental safety, which is a characteristic of the protection of all vital interests of man and the natural environment surrounding him. First of all, this concept reflects the protection of the rights of every citizen to the security of the world.
Rational nature management and environmental protection are now closely associated with economic regulatory methods, which are an absolute priority. A system of economic responsibility and interest in maintaining a favorable environment is still being developed. Nevertheless, there is a tendency towards greening the economy, although it is still difficult to observe the results.
Economic and environmental interests
Article 4 of the Federal Law on Environmental Protection contains a scientifically sound combination of economic, environmental, social interests of the state, society and people, where the main goal is to ensure a favorable natural environment. However, the country has territories with chronically high pollution, which is a clear violation of the rights guaranteed by the Constitution. These are Norilsk, Novokuznetsk and almost the entire Kuzbass, Chelyabinsk and its environs, as well as many other cities and regions.
A person with his rights and freedoms is the highest value that the state has, so protecting and realizing the right to a clean and harmless environment is the basis of the foundations. The state is currently implementing its environmental function very poorly. Particularly acute is the question of developing the best concept of environmental control that meets modern realities.
Landmark - World Experience
Today, environmental law is developing very poorly in our country. This is because there is a crisis state of the environment in many regions, and the public urgently needs to restore natural balance. Environmental legislation has numerous flaws and even defects, according to environmental experts, there are many gaps, and even fragmentation exists in legal regulation.
The state will have to become legal and social, but the emerging economic relations in no way inspire optimism in the public. The country has many forms of ownership and a complete diversity in the ownership of natural resources, but not one of them shows a truly respectful attitude to the environment. Environmental legislation should be guided by the best practices accumulated in the world, since many states are very successful in resolving issues of maintaining a favorable natural environment.