Crime of destroying environmental resources protection

Author: Wang Xiumei
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2003-02-01
Features: Environmental pollution and ecological destruction are not only closely related to human life and health but also have a close connection with the development of society, economy, science and technology, and cultural education. This special significance makes environmental issues one of the main research topics of the international community in the 21st century. Since the 1970s, the Chinese government has gradually realized the importance and strategic significance of environmental protection, continuously strengthening and improving environmental protection work, and has successively introduced a large number of environmental protection laws, regulations, orders, and notices, gradually bringing environmental protection work into a legal, scientific, and systematic track. At the same time, the process of aligning with international environmental protection has been accelerated. China's Constitution, General Principles of Civil Law, Criminal Law, and relevant single laws all involve environmental resource protection issues. In addition, the legal protection of environmental resources is mainly reflected through specialized laws and regulations. The use of criminal law to strengthen the protection and governance of environmental resources has been reflected in the history of the development of China's criminal law, but overall, it is relatively fragmented. The 1997 Criminal Law aimed to correct this flaw, emphasizing through strong wording the criminalization of acts that damage environmental resources, breaking through the limitations of certain traditional criminal law concepts, and can be regarded as a progress and leap in the history of criminal law. The crime of destroying environmental resource protection discussed in this book is a crime specially stipulated in the chapter on obstructing the order of social management in the revised criminal code, aiming to highlight the protection of environmental resources and emphasize the punitive force of criminal measures. The crime of destroying environmental resource protection involves 14 offenses, most of which are new additions to the revised criminal code, such as the crime of major environmental pollution accidents, the crime of illegally disposing of imported solid waste, the crime of illegally hunting and killing rare and endangered wildlife, the crime of illegally felling and destroying precious trees, and so on. These crimes are quite difficult to discuss for three main reasons: First, the research on environmental crimes is still in its early stages, and collecting original materials is relatively difficult; second, there are no relevant judicial precedents or corresponding interpretations in judicial practice, and there is a lack of reference points for arguments when discussing; third, environmental crimes involve multiple disciplines and a wide range of professional knowledge, some of which is beyond the author's capabilities.