Presumption in Favor of Sustainable Development: Ecological and Legal Aspect
Authors:   Volgograd State University, Sharno Oksana 
Published: December 2023

Introduction. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is aimed at minimizing modern threats to the universe, the natural environment, and man. The mobilization of financial resources, public administration, and environmental institutions for sustainable development should eliminate the consumer attitude of man toward nature and meet human needs in the context of rational use of natural resources, ensuring ecological balance for future generations. Instrumentally and meaningfully, such tasks are fixed by the principles of sustainable development, which regulate the principles, beliefs, and rules for action, predicting the provisions of sustainable development. The purpose of the study is to reveal the concept and meaning of the presumption in favor of sustainable development and the features of its implementation. Methods. The methods used in the research are analysis (allowed to determine the signs and the fundamental features of the concept of “presumption”), synthesis (used to generalize the typological features of presumptions), and the method of analogies (the identification of the meaning of “presumptions” from the study of legal relations, including examples of judicial enforcement). The comparative legal method of the study provided an analysis of the presumption in favor of sustainable development, regulated by the legislation of the United Kingdom, as well as the search for similar features in the Russian legislation. The formal legal method made it possible to identify the features and specifics of normative regulation and the implementation of presumption as a means of ensuring sustainable development. Results. Presumptions (refutable and irrefutable) as means of legal regulation and the implementation of environmental legislation represent an inference (argument, conclusion) from a specific fact in the form of a rational assumption in accordance with the principles and goals of sustainable development, through legislative consolidation or enforcement. Presumptions in favor of sustainable development are aimed at resolving socio-economic problems, problems of preserving a favorable environment, and natural resource potential in order to meet the needs of current and future generations of people; they ensure sustainable development in a three-dimensional interdependent dimension: social, economic, and environmental. The emphasizing of the “economic” component in decision-making in the field of social development is unacceptable and is not aimed at the implementation of environmental objectives that form the basis of sustainable development policy. Conclusions. The significance of the presumption in favor of sustainable development lies in the fact that sustainable development can be achieved through growth in its three-sided socioeconomic and environmental dimensions, with an emphasis on the environmental component. Another meaning of the presumption in favor of sustainable development, implemented in legal practice, is that it is not aimed at sustainable development in its traditional environmental purpose.