毕业论文外文翻译--论环境犯罪的立法完善.docVIP

A Graduated Punishment Approach to Environmental Crimes Susan F. Mandiberg and Michael Faure I. INTRODUCTION Why do we have environmental crimes? What social harms are we addressing, and what interests are we vindicating through use of the criminal sanction? The answer to these questions is not found in traditional criminal law principles. This is because environmental interests and values do not enjoy an absolute protection in the law. Unlike theft or homicide, for example, which may cause personal benefits only to the criminal, most polluting activities generate substantial societal benefits as well as environmental costs. Thus, environmental law in many countries is aimed largely at an administrative control of pollution, usually through licensing and permitting systems. Environmental criminal statutes largely function to help ensure that control. The interweaving of administrative and criminal law has been pronounced from the beginning of modern environmental crimes in the mid-twentieth century. Then, as now, environmental criminal law focused on punishing the lack of a permit or the violation of permit or other regulatory requirements and conditions. However, although this administrative dependence of environmental criminal law may have been the general starting point, European commentators have increasingly pointed to serious weaknesses in this approach. For one thing, if the role of the criminal law is restricted to punishing administrative disobedience, other types of pollution may go unpunished, thus limiting the ability of the criminal law to protect ecological values. In addition, unlike the situation with traditional crimes, administrators (not legislators) decide what is and is not criminal. This critique of the absolute administrative dependence of environmental criminal law has had its effects on European legislation and on international conventions.5 As a result, one can now increasingly notice the use of other models of environmenta