Research On The Nature Of Illegality In Environmental Crime

Illegality is an important component of the three-level system of constitutiverequirements of crime in some countries and areas of civil law system such asGermany, Japan, which include “deserved constitutional elements, illegality andimputability”，and it is the substantive characteristics.Concerning the nature ofillegality, there exist long debates between Erfolgsunwert and Handlungsunwert in thefield of legal theory. However,neither Erfolgsunwert nor Handlungsunwert canexplain the nature of illegality exactly in environment crime. Therefore, the theory of“admissible potential damage offence” appears which is to advocate that illegality is aquantitative criterion, not Erfolgsunwert and Handlungsunwert simply. Inside thelegal and society limits,environment injury is allowed,once outside the legal andsociety limits,it is unlawfule.The author intends to point out defects of the theory oftraditional illegality in environment crime,and recommends the new theory of“admissible potential damage offence”.The new theory can play an important role inexplaining the nature of illegality in environment crime and fighting criminals toprotect the environment.In the part one,the author introduces the theory of illegality insome countries and areas of civil law system such as Germany, Japan and presentsthat there exist long debates on the nature of illegality between Erfolgsunwert andHandlungsunwert in the field of legal theory.Then the author introduces ulteriorly theapplication of theory of illegality in our country and indicates that the system ofconstitutive requirements of crime in china is the amalgamation of subjective andobjective,also Erfolgsunwert and Handlungsunwert.In part two,the author introducesthe new type of crime:environment crime and emphasizes that environment crime isvaluable sometimes,then points out the flaws of Erfolgsunwert and Handlungsunwertin explaining the nature of illegality in environment crime and recommends the theoryof “admissible potential damage offence”,next analyzes the necessity and feasibilityof the new theory.In the third part,the author indicates the proposal of new theory mayinfluence and revise the traditional system of constitutive requirements of crime in chinaand stresses the importance of exercisable system construction in the judicialpractice.The author raises that in order to define the limits of “admissible potentialdamage offence” concretely,our country should establish the system of exercisabledischarge value and environment quality standards.