Research On The Controversial Issues Of The Crime Of Environmental Pollution

After entering the 21 st century,environmental pollution cases occur frequently,and social harmfulness is highlighted.In order to strengthen the punishment of environmental pollution and implement the strategy of sustainable development,the Criminal Law Amendment(8)revised the crime of major environmental pollution accidents into the crime of environmental pollution.There have been many theoretical contradictions and practical disputes since the birth of the crime of environmental pollution.Different interpretations of "serious environmental pollution" and related judicial interpretations make it have ambiguous scope of legal interest protection,unclear form of sin,vague type of behavior,and the complexity and changeability of environmental pollution cases themselves,which make it difficult to identify causality.In judicial practice,the application of the crime of environmental pollution is always in a dilemma.To solve the dilemma of the application of the crime of environmental pollution,it is necessary to sort out and analyze the controversial issues of its application.In this paper,combined with the current criminal law provisions of the crime of polluting the environment and the relevant judicial interpretations,it provides an operable standard for the determination of the crime of polluting the environment in judicial practice,and makes some useful exploration for the correct understanding and application of the crime.The legal interest protection of the crime of environmental pollution is the root of the other controversial issues.Anthropocentrism takes the protection of human interests as the starting point,and the scope of regulation of the crime of environmental pollution is the narrowest,which is conducive to short-term economic development but not conducive to long-term protection of the ecological environment.Eco-centrism takes the protection of the environment itself as the starting point,and the scope of the regulation of environmental pollution crime is the widest,which is conducive to the protection of environmental legal interests but hinders economic development.The essence of the concept of legal interest of environmental crime is to measure economic development and ecological environment protection.We should take the legal interest concept of ecological anthropocentrism as the guidance,and interpret the specific legal interest protected by the crime of polluting the environment as the collection of the ecological environment itself and human legal interests that do not conflict with the overall interests of human beings.The dispute on the subjective culpability of the crime of environmental pollution is the continuation of the dispute on the protection of legal interests.Under the guidance of the ecological anthropocentric view of legal interests,the subjective culpability of the crime of environmental pollution refers to the actor’s psychological state of serious damage to the environment,rather than the psychological state of serious damage to human legal interests.The negligence theory can not solve the environmental pollution cases in which the actor pursues economic interests and allows the consequences of environmental damage to occur.The theory of compound fault is not in harmony with a series of systems of the general provisions of the criminal law while violating the principle of legality.The crime of polluting the environment should adopt the theory of intent.The determination of intent should be based on the actor’s mentality of damage to ecological legal interests,and be carried out through two aspects of cognitive factors and will factors.The controversy of behavior type of environmental pollution crime is another continuation of the controversy of legal interest protection,and the key to solve the controversy of behavior type of environmental pollution crime lies in the correct understanding of "serious environmental pollution".Under the guidance of the legal interest concept of ecological anthropocentrism,"serious pollution of the environment" should mean that the environment has been seriously polluted,and the nature of the crime of polluting the environment as a result of actual harm has not changed.The understanding of "serious pollution of the environment" should not be narrowly based on the standard of environmental quality damage that can be perceived by human beings,and all acts that make environmental pollution factors integrate with the objective environment should be regarded as actual violations of the environment.On the judgment of causality of the crime of polluting the environment.The traditional theory of causation is not enough to deal with the increasingly complex environmental pollution cases,and it is a good strategy to introduce the theory of extraterritorial causation on the basis of it.In terms of specific operation,we can take the steps of two-tier identification of factual and legal causality.First,the causation theory of epidemiology is used to test whether the factual causation is established and to complete the factual attribution,and then the objective imputation theory is used to complete the amendment of legal causation and to realize the objective imputation.The controversy over the protection of legal interests and the type of behavior of the crime of polluting the environment determines the controversy over the determination of the "disposal" behavior of the crime of polluting the environment.The crime of polluting the environment belongs to the result crime of actual harm,and the essence of the crime lies in the infringement of the legal interests of the ecological environment.The act of "disposal" should also satisfy the serious infringement on the legal interests of the ecological environment.In the three forms of "discharge","dumping" and "disposal","disposal" plays a role similar to the bottom-up clause.The act of "disposal" should be determined comprehensively by referring to "discharge" and "dumping" combined with its infringement on the legal interests of the ecological environment.In terms of the nature of the act,the act of "disposal" should have the possibility of real damage to environmental legal interests,and in terms of the degree of harm,the act of "disposal" is equivalent to "discharge" and "dumping".The harmlessness and reduction of pollutants do not satisfy the social harmfulness of criminal acts,and should not be recognized as the "disposal" of environmental pollution crimes.