Research On Environmental Criminal Liability

Environment provides the motive force and source for the sustainable development of the mankind, and is the foundation for the subsistence and development of human beings. However, all kinds of environmental problems have emerged when people's ability to remake nature keeps improving with the rapid growth of economy and progress of the society. We have been polluting and destroying the environment while we are benefiting from it. The current environment status is looking blue with the environmental public nuisance events and the three global environmental problems--ozone depletion, greenhouse effect as well as acid rain, which is not only retarding the economic sustainable development, but also threatening human beings'health and life.Our country is one of the developing countries. Due to our relatively backward economy, people's consciousness on environment protection is weak and not enough attention has been give to it. Environmental problem has become one of the serious social problems and how to punish the environment criminal has attracted the most attention in our country. As the last protective barrier in law, the criminal law's most urgent task is how to prevent and punish the environment criminals. In this paper, through analyzing the current research from home and abroad on our country's environmental criminal responsibility, its shortcomings in theory, legislative model, liability principle, implantation and enforcement as well as its difficulty in dealing with the more and more serious environment pollution and resource damage in our country are pointed out. Based on the above knowledge and referring to the experience of the foreign environment criminal responsibility laws, a proposal on making a single environment criminal law and establishing effective law enforcement departments is presented. In addition, suggestion on improving and perfecting our country's environmental criminal responsibility legislation was also brought forward, in which the emphasis was given to innovating the theoretical foundation of the environmental criminal responsibility, developing its principle, comprehensively applying its liability principle as well as rationalizing its implantation in order that the environmental criminal responsibility could have the advanced theoretical foundation, correct principal direction and more accurate liability principle to improve the judicial efficiency and ensure the judicial justice. These improvements will be helpful to solve the environmental pollution problem from the root and protect our living environment in a better way so as to promote the sustainable development of the economy and society and enhance our country's international competitiveness.