Document Actions
Recommendations
Up one level
RECOMMENDATIONS
- It should be considered whether establishing strict liability for environmental accidents or lowered level of the burden of proof for causation could be introduced either with a special law on environmental liability or with changing the Civil Code and the Criminal Code to guarantee more efficient repair of the damage to the victims of environmental accidents or crimes.
- Special laws concerning environmental accidents which huge effects (of the type of Chernobyl) might be considered both because of the need to limit liability and provide damages.
- Parliamentary acts should be more detailed and not merely declarations of framework principles. The tendency to raise more issues on the law level is a sound one.
- Co-ordination between different state as well as state and municipal authorities functioning on environmental protection and the use of natural resources should be increased further. It should, however, be remembered that the interests of cheap and effective use of natural resources should not be given supremacy over the interests of environmental protection within the controlling and monitoring administration. Coordination also contributes to non contradicting and more coherent system of standards and quality control.
- Strict limits and standards and their strict control is a tendency which should be continued. However, it should be done firmly and impartially as paying attention to creating uniform rules for inspections shows.
- Civil society and the channels for the NGOs to influence on environmental policy should still be increased even if it on the legislative level is already quite strong especially in Russia. Civil society should also be supported by trying to influence on the attitudes of politicians and civil servants. Environmental action programmes are an excellent tool in this respect. They should contain a timetable for adoption as well as quite a detailed description of how the objectives are going to be reached.
- The role of the local self-governance should be strengthened. Strong local influence is needed in far-reaching decisions affecting on the environmental situation. It is usually the local people who experience the conflict between economic and environmental interests and if they cannot influence on their own environment, environmentally friendly centralised policy is not going to function in practice.
- Tax incentives for investing in best available technology as well as environmental taxes might be considered carefully and coordinating environmental policy with other national policies should be developed further
- The new mechanisms based on the Kyoto protocol might be worth considering in closing down most air polluting and dangerous enterprises and encouraging restructuring and investments in best available technology.
