Concerning the concept of legal responsibility for violations of environmental legislation
Authors:   Mariupol State University, Кoveino Yuliia 
Published: May 2023

The article highlights the main issues related to the definition of the concept of legal responsibility for violations of environmental legislation. The main approaches to the characterization of responsibility are analyzed, taking into account the general theoretical concept of legal responsibility, its main features and components. Legal liability for violation of environmental legislation is one of the main institutions of law and legislation, and it is quite debatable, which justifies its theoretical and practical significance. Legal responsibility for violations of environmental legislation is an important element of ensuring the rational use of natural resources, their protection and ensuring the basic environmental rights of citizens and is aimed at compliance with basic environmental and legal norms and the prevention of environmental offenses, which is the basis of positive legal responsibility for violations of environmental legislation. Attention is focused on strengthening the ecological legal order, which requires new approaches to mediating the interaction of nature and society, and legal responsibility is indicated as the most effective means of strengthening such legal order, which is especially relevant at the current stage of statehood development and requires improvement of the content and form of environmental protection activities. At the same time, the restoration of law and order is implemented through the use of legal means of protection, provided for by sanctions for violated norms of environmental legislation. The approach regarding the existence of retrospective and positive legal responsibility for violations of environmental legislation is analyzed, and their main content and features are indicated. The essence of retrospective responsibility, as the main type, consists in adverse consequences for the violator of the environmental law, while positive responsibility consists in the voluntary implementation of basic environmental norms and prescriptions. The main types of legal liability for violations of environmental legislation are outlined, including: criminal, administrative, civil and disciplinary. In addition, the existence of environmental and legal responsibility as a complex category is indicated and its main content and features are characterized. The positions of scientists regarding the concept of legal responsibility for violation of environmental legislation are highlighted and a refined definition is proposed, which is characterized as a type of retrospective and positive legal responsibility, which is implemented in the appropriate legal relationship, on the one hand, between the offender and competent state authorities, on the other hand, regarding the committed environmental offense , and, as a result, provides corresponding obligations in accordance with the requirements of the law and in relation to the person of the offender (give a report on one's illegal behavior and bear related restrictions of a property, organizational or other nature) and in relation to authorized state bodies (apply measures and measures of coercive state-legal influence on the person of the offender for the offense committed) and, at the same time, is provided criminally -, administrative, civil and disciplinary means.