Legal Regulation of Environmental Monitoring

General Provisions

The legal regulation of environmental monitoring represents a key instrument for ensuring compliance with environmental legislation and rational use of natural resources. It is aimed at preventing, detecting, and preventing violations in the field of environmental protection, as well as controlling compliance with environmental standards and rules of economic activity. An effective legal framework allows integrating measures of state, industrial, and public monitoring into a unified system of nature conservation.

Eco-control covers a wide range of activities, including the monitoring of natural resource use, emissions of pollutants, industrial waste, and ecosystem protection. It serves as an instrument for implementing the administrative and legal mechanisms of environmental protection, ensuring that violators are held accountable and that ecological damage is compensated. Legislation defines the objects, forms, and procedures for conducting control, establishing a clear legal basis for all subjects of natural resource use.

The legal regulation of eco-control includes various forms: state environmental supervision, production control, and public oversight. Each of these forms has its own characteristics, authorities, and procedures. State supervision is aimed at centralized management and monitoring compliance with standards, production control focuses on internal company monitoring, while public oversight involves the participation of citizens and public organizations in monitoring the condition of the environment.

From the perspective of legal theory, environmental monitoring is considered a function of management, a guarantee of compliance with legislation, and a legal form of ensuring environmental safety. It ensures the collection, processing, and evaluation of information on the condition of natural objects, allows for making managerial decisions, and adjusts the activities of economic and other entities in order to reduce negative impact on the environment.

Modern legislation in the field of environmental monitoring also takes into account the distinction between the concepts of "monitoring" and "supervision." Monitoring is considered a comprehensive system of actions aimed at checking and ensuring compliance with requirements of environmental legislation, whereas supervision is a form of monitoring that does not interfere with the operational activities of an entity. A clear distinction between these concepts allows for improving the efficiency of legal regulation and creating a stable system for protecting the environment.

Legal issues related to environmental monitoring receive significant attention in scientific literature¹. As noted by N.V. Kichigin, it is not sufficient merely to establish environmental requirements and standards; it is necessary to ensure their strict observance, hold violators accountable, and compensate for damage caused to the environment. These tasks are carried out by such an instrument of the administrative mechanism for environmental protection as environmental monitoring².

Environmental monitoring – this is a system of measures aimed at preventing, detecting and halting violations of legislation in the field of environmental protection, ensuring that entities engaged in economic or other activities comply with requirements, including standards and normative documents, in the area of environmental protection (Article 1 of the Federal Law "On Environmental Protection").

The concept of "environmental control" is also explained in ecological legal literature. For example, A.K. Golichenkov understands environmental control as the monitoring of the use of natural resources and the protection of the surrounding natural environment³. According to M.M. Brinchuk, environmental control is the activity of authorized subjects aimed at checking and ensuring compliance with and enforcement of requirements of environmental legislation⁴. At the same time, N.V. Kichigin notes that in legislation, environmental control is understood in two meanings: narrowly, as control over the activities of subjects of economic and other activities causing negative impact on the environment, and broadly, as control in the field of environmental protection, including control over the rational use and protection of natural resources⁵.

According to A.K. Golichenkov, the basis of the concept of environmental monitoring lies in understanding it as a function, guarantee, and legal form of environmental activities. Environmental monitoring as a function of managing environmental activities represents a system of actions for collecting information about objects under supervision, its processing, assessment, and transmission for making managerial decisions with predetermined objectives. Environmental monitoring as a guarantee of environmental activities is a means of ensuring the implementation of all other functions of environmental management, an element of the economic mechanism for solving environmental problems, and acts issued during or in the course of its implementation - an element of the legal mechanism for natural resource use and protection of the surrounding natural environment. Environmental control as a legal form of environmental activity represents a system of actions aimed at ensuring compliance with legislation on ecological safety, protection of the surrounding natural environment, use of natural resources, application of measures of state compulsion provided for by it, as well as formation of new legislation adequate to changes occurring in this area, including through direct control and expert examination of legislative proposals⁶.

Chapter XI of the Federal Law "On Environmental Protection" provides for the implementation of state environmental supervision, production environmental monitoring, and public environmental monitoring. Previously, there was also municipal environmental monitoring, which was abolished in 2008⁷. According to S.A. Bogolyubov, the development of small and medium-sized businesses implies the restoration of municipal environmental monitoring. The municipal environmental monitoring introduced by the Federal Law "On Environmental Protection" has demonstrated its effectiveness in a number of cities and other municipal formations⁸.

The distinction between the concepts of "control" and "supervision" is of great importance. As noted by N.V. Kichigin, in legal literature significant attention has been paid to distinguishing between the concepts of "control" and "supervision". According to the traditional interpretation of control and supervision, supervision is a form of control without intervention in the operational activities of an economic entity. However, currently there is a growing view that control and supervision should be considered as independent forms of activity based on different principles⁹.

2008. No. 26. Article 3012.