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ABSTRACT
Russia, Ukraine and Byelorussia have the same soviet background for their environmental legislation and management. Each of the countries have started to develop their legislation building a system of payments for use and fines for misuse of licences on the soviet based management system. After ten years the general structure is still compared to each other very much similar in all the three countries.
Environmental regulation is organized as management of different natural resources such as land, water, forest and below ground resources. Protection of the environment has been treated as a separate branch. Since natural resources have not been privatised, the management structure has maintained its main features of the state owner control for the use of the resources. Russia has had a special problem with dividing decision power between the federal and the regional levels of the state owner. Private ownership of natural resources has been made possible in the Russian federal constitution of 1993, but in federal legislation state ownership of natural resources is maintained as the main rule. The Byelorussian choice for state ownership is even stronger. The constitution recognises only state ownership of natural resources and there exists legislation denying to transfer natural resources into private ownership.
Legislation has traditionally been drafted only as framework rules which could not have been implemented without more detailed regulations on the government or administrative level. There is a tendency in both Russia and Ukraine to gradually raise more regulation to the legislative level and in this way give the parliament a more important role.
Licenses are permitted in Russia by the local branches of federal state organs. In Ukraine it is the national state organs on the regional level. In Byelorussia all the licences are permitted coordinated as one permit for every activity. The involvement of the municipal level is rather insignificant, though they have a role in proposing local land use alternatives for the state owner. The requirements of international treaties for increasing the involvement of citizens and NGOs in environmental issues has been implemented on the legislative level. In principle there are several channels for citizens to influence in environmental policy and legislation.
All the three countries have introduced payments for the use of natural resources as well as fines for breaking the rules of licences or exceeding the discharge limits. The limits for discharges and quality standards for water are rather high and enterprises are afraid of fines with the help of which environmental funds for cleansing and repairing damage are increased. The real problem, however, is how to support the enterprises to invest in environmental friendly technology. Tax incentives are possible in all the three countries and also exist to some extent in Russia and Byelorussia. However, because of the complexity of the tax system under reform these incentives have to be considered carefully and co-ordinated with other policies.
Legal liability in environmental damage is difficult to show since liability is fault based and the courts demand quite strong proof for the causal connection with the fault and the damage.
