The Causality Research Of Our Country’s Environmental Crimes

In recent years, with the deepening of human industrialization, environmentalproblem are more and more seriously affecting the survival and development of humanbeings, which objectively urges people to actively think about the relationship betweenman and nature. This kind of thinking is reflected in a specific way, that is, therecognition of independent value of nature in terms of ethics theory and the increase ofpunishment against environmental injury behaviors in judicial practice. Criminalsanction is the most severe punishment to protect the environment, and the range ofenvironmental injury punishment decides the enforcement of environmental crimepunishment, while the constitution of a crime of the environmental crime decides therange of environmental injury punishment. By studying the objective aspects of theconstitution of a crime of the environmental crime, the causality, this paper exploreshow to use the criminal law weapon to solve the increasingly serious environmentalproblems, in order to make the criminal law have the greatest efficiency and functionin the environmental protection in our country. Compared with the traditional crime,environmental crime has its inherent particularity and complexity in terms of causalityidentification. The theory of causality in traditional criminal law is not suitable for thecausality identification in the environmental crime, which is just taken as thebackground by this paper.This paper is divided into six parts:The first part is the introduction. The background, the purpose, the methods, and the research status at home and abroad of this thesis are introduced first and the basicstructure of this paper is described at last.The basic theory of causal relationship in environmental crime is brieflysummarized in second part. First the concept and characteristics of environmentalcrime are introduced clearly; secondly the definition and characteristics of causalrelationship and the scope of application of the research in this thesis are alsopresented.The third part mainly discusses the suitable straits of China’s traditional theory ofcausal relationship in environmental crime. First, the traditional theory of casualrelationship is introduced in two views: continental legal system and Anglo-AmericanLegal System. Then the difficulty is analyzed based on a specific case, which we needto face when traditional casual relationship is applied to the identification of the causalrelationship in environmental crime.Foreign environmental crime causal relationship theory development status andreference are introduced in part four. Three theories of foreign environmental crimecausal relationship: the epidemiological causal relationship theory, the indirect disprooftheory, the causation presumption theory are presented at first. Then the pros and consof the two theories of causal relationship in environmental crime are analyzed in theory,the relationships between any two of the above mentioned three theories are alsoanalyzed and compared. The conclusion that the causation presumption theory is themost suitable and applicable for China is obtained.The influence factors of the identification of causal relationship in China’senvironmental crime are discussed in the fifth part. From domestic and abroadsuperstructure and economic base, four main influence factors are summarized asfollowings: the intensity of the punishments to environmental crime, the reality of theinternational environmental crime punishment, China’s environmental policy andeconomic and technical factors.In part VI, applicable suggestions for identification of causal relationship inenvironmental crime are demonstrated. First, the necessity and feasibility of theEnvironmental Crime Causation Presumption theory in China are analyzed in both thetheoretical and practical views. Secondly, applicable suggestions for identification of causal relationship in environmental crime are provided in both the legislative andjudicial levels. From legislative level, judicial interpretation is suggested foridentification of causal relationship in environmental crime in our country; fromjudicial level, according to the problems in the judicial practice in our country, thesuggestions for improvement are given as followings: firstly, the range andrequirements which are suitable identification of causal relationship in environmentalcrime should be restricted strictly, and then the burden of proof should be distributedproperly.