Compensation for Environmental Damage in Russian Legal Studies (Review of Literature for 2009-2019)

In Russian science, the institute of compensation for environmental damage has traditionally received much attention. At the same time, there are few works of a review nature, and they are mainly dedicated to studies of the Soviet and post-Soviet period. The subject of research in this work is Russian scientists' view on the identified issues for the period from 2009 to 2019. The key issue of the institute in question is the determination of its legal nature. The prevailing point of view is that this is a special case of civil liability. It is recognized that environmental legislation should supplement the norms of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation. It is also recognized that this institute performs the functions of protecting public interests in a favorable environment, which is not characteristic of civil liability. This takes it beyond the scope of private law. The internal contradictions of the institute, generated by its complex legal nature, reduce its effectiveness. Attempts to resolve them, as a result, put the question of transforming civil liability for environmental damage into environmental liability on the agenda. In this regard, of interest are studies of foreign experience in introducing environmental liability (USA, European Union countries), including its goals, functions, areas and limits of action. The advantages of environmental liability are seen in the fact that it performs not only a compensatory, but also a preventive function. A third way is proposed for legalizing relations of compensation for environmental harm through exclusively public law institutions: carrying out restoration work within the framework of state environmental supervision and introducing a new type of public law payments designed to compensate for the incalculable losses in the natural environment and the state's environmental costs. The focus is still on the terminology of the institute under study, in particular, the key legal definition "environmental damage" needs to be clarified. It seems that, from a practical point of view, primarily in the context of determining the necessary and sufficient evidence of harm, it is important to link it with environmental quality standards, which, in turn, determine the favorable state of the environment. A significant share in modern research is occupied by the correlation of various forms of compensation for harm: in kind and in value, the improvement of rates and techniques as special methods for calculating the amount of environmental harm, the possibility of using the direct method of determining the amount of harm according to actual costs, the procedure for accounting for the costs of the harm inflicter to restore the damaged state of the environment when determining the extent of harm.

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