Environmental criminal enforcement in Poland and Russia: Meeting current challenges

Abstract

Environmental criminal law provides for measures targeting the most serious environmental offences and improving the enforceability of environmental provisions. In the article, environmental criminal law provisions in Poland and Russia are analyzed and compared. The changes introduced by the Council Directive 2008/99/EC on the protection of the environment through criminal law have a significant impact on the Member States' criminal law, promoting broader criminalization of environmentally harmful behavior and more severe sanctions. Although the Russian Federation is not an EU member and adopts its environmental legislation, it is still a party to several international treaties and therefore is obligated to provide an adequate level of environmental protection. There are several similarities between the criminal provisions in both countries concerning the classification of environmental crimes and the limbs of their legal definitions. Besides, both countries use a continental model of criminal procedure including their rules on evidence. It allowed us to compare national law enforcement practices. The authors analyze current law enforcement challenges and discuss possible solutions.