Subject and Methods of Environmental Law, Participants in Environmental Legal Relations

General Provisions

This section outlines the subject and methods of environmental law, as well as the characteristics of environmental legal relations and their participants.

Different scientific approaches to defining the subject of this branch are analyzed, including views that consider environmental relations as the basis for legal regulation of interaction between society and nature.

Special attention is given to the characteristics of subjects of environmental legal relations – state authorities, local self-government bodies, individuals and legal entities, as well as public organizations.

The methods of legal regulation, their specificity and combination, including imperative, dispositional, and special methods such as ecological integration and stimulation, are considered.

Subject of Legal Regulation

According to the general theory of law, the criteria for dividing law into separate branches are the subject and method of legal regulation. The subject of legal regulation is a qualitatively homogeneous type of social relations regulated by the corresponding branch of law, their distinctiveness. The method of legal regulation represents a set of techniques and ways of regulating social relations, influencing human behavior. If the subject answers the question of which relations are regulated by law, then the method answers the question of how this regulation is carried out¹.

According to S.A. Bogolyubov, the core of social relations regulated by environmental law are relations in the area of interaction between society, people and nature. They undoubtedly have a specific character - they arise, change and terminate in relation to the protection and rational use of natural resources². A somewhat different approach is taken by M.M. Brinchuk, who believes that the subject of environmental law are social relations concerning nature or the environment³. A.Yu. Vinokurov considers that the subject of environmental law are social relations regulated by norms of environmental law, which arise, change and terminate in the field of nature use, protection of the environment and ensuring ecological safety⁴. Whereas O.L. Dubovik considers that the subject of environmental law is ecologically significant human behavior⁵.

Thus, a unified approach to understanding the subject of environmental law has not yet been formed and this issue remains controversial. However, taking into account the positions of scholars presented, it can be noted that the subject of environmental law, in the most general sense, are environmental legal relations or social relations regulated by norms of environmental law.

Parties to Environmental Legal Relations

The participants (or subjects) of environmental legal relations are: 1) state authorities (federal state authorities, state authorities of the subjects of the Russian Federation); 2) local self-government bodies (which do not belong to the system of state authorities); 3) physical and legal entities. In addition, in environmental legislation, public and other non-profit organizations engaged in environmental protection activities are often singled out as separate subjects of environmental legal relations⁶. This is explained by the special significance that these organizations have in the field of environmental protection (for example, conducting public environmental expertise, carrying out public environmental monitoring).

Methods of legal regulation

The issue of the methods of environmental law, as well as other legal fields, is extremely poorly developed in Russian doctrine⁷. At the same time, relying on approaches to methodology developed within general theory of law⁸, the method of environmental law can be considered as a set of techniques and ways of regulating public ecological relations. The method of environmental law is imperative-dispositive.

Name of the methodImperativeDispositive****Regulatory Featuresregulation of the behavior of participants in legal relations from the position of authority and subordinationregulation of the behavior of participants in legal relations from the position of their equality and autonomy of willArea of Applicationpredominates in public law areaspredominates in private law areasExamplemandatory conduct of environmental impact assessment when planning economic and other activities that may cause harm to the environment.voluntary environmental insurance.

Under the imperative method of legal regulation of social relations, mutual rights and obligations between the parties arise not through mutual agreement, but based on legal norms issued by the state⁹. Within the framework of the imperative method, the behavior of participants in legal relations is regulated from the position of authority and subordination. This method is more characteristic of public law areas. As an example of the imperative method of legal regulation of social ecological relations, one can cite the mandatory conduct of environmental impact assessment when planning economic and other activities that may cause harm to the environment.

Dispositive method provides participants in legal relations with the opportunity to independently determine their behavior towards each other within the framework of the law and is characterized, as a rule, by equality of parties¹⁰. Within the dispositive method, the behavior of participants in legal relations is regulated from the position of their equality and autonomy of will. This method is more characteristic of private branches of law (primarily civil law). An example of a dispositive method of legal regulation of public environmental relations may be voluntary environmental insurance. The specificity of ecological-legal methodology lies in the special combination of these methods with the predominance of the imperative method of legal regulation.

The imperative and dispositional methods, in certain combinations, are inherent to all¹¹ areas of law and therefore are considered as general methods of legal regulation of social relations. At the same time, in ecological legal literature, special methods of legal regulation that are unique to environmental law are also identified. For example, in the literature, the method of ecologization is singled out, which, according to V.V. Petrov, is the leading method of environmental law¹². As noted by S.A. Bogolyubov, the method of ecologization can be considered as a manifestation of the general ecological approach to all events and phenomena of social life, as the penetration of the global task of environmental protection into all areas of social relations, both currently regulated and those not yet regulated by law¹³.

Meanwhile, M.M. Brinchuk also highlights the method of stimulation, which consists in establishing provisions in legislation aimed at stimulating subjects of environmental law (usually natural resource users) to take initiative in adopting and implementing measures for the effective enforcement of environmental legislation¹⁴.

Methods of legal regulation should be distinguished from methods of environmental law science. Among them, general scientific and specifically sociological methods are identified. In the context of environmental law science, in addition to logical, historical, and other general scientific methods, the question of the influence of natural scientific, as well as specific – ecological – methods is correctly raised. Sometimes it is difficult to separate such methods from fundamental concepts and teachings, such as the theory of evolution, noosphere, etc.¹⁵

On the autonomy of environmental law

In scientific literature, discussions often arise regarding the independence of environmental law as a branch of law. Interest in this issue is largely explained by differing opinions among scholars. For example, O.I. Krassov considers environmental law to be an independent¹⁶, M.M. Brinchuk considers it a complex one¹⁷, and O.L. Dubovik considers it an independent complex branch of law¹⁸. At the same time, we believe that the positions presented by scholars are not always mutually exclusive.

The autonomy of environmental law as a branch of law is determined by: 1) the special subject of legal regulation, which are environmental legal relations (or social relations regulated by norms of environmental law); and 2) the special combination of methods of legal regulation of public environmental relations, the basis of which, along with the imperative-dispositive method, also includes methods of ecological integration and stimulation. Whereas the complexity of the branch of environmental law is explained by the fact that, according to a broad approach to understanding environmental law¹⁹, this branch of law includes nature protection law, natural resource law, and ecologized norms from other branches of law.