CC BY
17gs4 право и экономика ^d
DOI 10.24411 /2076-1503-2020-11115 SANGAJIEVBadma Vladimirovich,
Ph (D), full professor, the head of the Department of judiciary, law enforcement and legal protection activity at the Russian University of Peoples Friendship, e-mail: mail@law-books.ru
KHALATYAN Raisa Fyodorovna,
senior teacher of the Russian and foreign languages Chair
at the State University of Land Management, e-mail: mail@law-books.ru
KOROLEVA Liudmila Anatolyevna,
senior teacher of the Russian and foreign languages Chair
at the State University of Land Management, e-mail: mail@law-books.ru
ECOLOGY, INFORMATION AND POLLUTION CONTROL IN THE UNITED KINGDOM
Annotation. The article is a brief introductory case study of environmental policy in the UK. The authors hold that as far as preservation of nature is concerned the term 'information' plays the literally central role, which is hinted at in the title of the article. The notion of ecology opens its meaning to us through various ecological problems of which we are eventually informed or sometimes deliberately misled. Likewise, the term 'pollution control' can only acquire its semantic and institutional shape after we have got and grasped the relevant 'pollution information'. The authors maintain that the environmental legislature in the UK may be regarded as a precautionary and preventing legal information for would-be polluters, both industrial and private.
Key words: nature preservation, environmental policy in the UK, ecology, ecological information, pollution control, environmental legislature in the UK.
Almost everybody nowadays is prone to articulate her concerns about "ecology"1 and the most controversial earth issues, such as the climate change, the pollution control, the disastrous effects of aggressive urbanization, the soil degradation and the going on extinction of various kinds of plants and animals. This omnipresence of ecological problems tends to deprive the ecological discussion of the "rigueur scientifique".
In this article, we are trying to set apart ideological and emotional approaches to ecology by integrating all the three issues, implied in the heading (ecology, information and pollution control). The first issue, namely that of ecology is rooted in a curious in -between science, which is called either "linguistic jurisprudence", or "juris-linguistics". Although any-
1 The most conspicuous example embodies the Swedish teenager Tina Thunberg, who sees no reason -among other things - to go to school, because the grownups allegedly have deprived the Earth of sustainability and her generation of future, compatible with human dignity.
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body may appeal to ecology in her discursive activity, there is still no consensus achieved as to the meaning of this word.
Moreover the battlefield lies - more often than not - within the national socio-cultural setting. The most conspicuous example is the "ecological dissent" between the "industrial and administrative elite" on the one hand, and the particular "activists or the ecologically engaged dwellers", on the other hand. The first tend to mask the priority of their financial interests over the ecological imperative of securing our survival, the latter identify their interests with the nature preservation and are often likely to underestimate the necessity of maintaining the adequate employment rate. Most often, the both sides are wrong, as far as the meaning of the term "ecology" is concerned. The point is that the term "ecology" in its actuality has nothing in common with the word "interest". The latter is nothing more than the abbreviation of the term "human interest". If we integrate the notion of "interest" in that of "ecology", we are implying by
this the priority of humans over the Nature. At the same time, by doing this we are committing the logical error, known as "pars pro toto".1 The common sense tells us, that the Nature is "the whole", and "human beings" are but a part of it. It is ridiculous to suggest that the nature has interests of its own. However, even if we admit the possibility of this, we would have to logically subordinate our "human, all too human" interests to those of the Nature.
In our opinion, the proper meaning of the term "ecology" is to be found between the sense boundaries of the two referential terms - "scarcity" and "abundance". The Nature in the broad sense may be both scarce and abundant, but it cannot be scarce and abundant at the same time, in the same place and in the same respect (for example, in the same biological species). Thus, the term "ecology" for us, as humans, implies our capacity and willingness to alleviate natural scarcity in some particular respect by reasonable transmuting and transforming natural abundance, open to us in some other respect. It may be regarded as a positive meaning of the term "ecology". However, the actual preponderance of the term "ecology" is associated with the so-called ecological issues. In other words the term "ecology" carries the burden of the negative connotation, i.e. we usually acknowledge the existence of the Nature as such, when there is something wrong with this existence. Thus, the negative connotation of the term "ecology" may be as follows: "ecology is both the theory and the practice of preventing future human-made ecological risks and neutralizing or alleviating present ecological harms".
The term "ecological information" may be ambiguous and controversial in the same way, as the term "ecology". Thus, according to Robin Grove -White "in particular national cultures, environmental issues and, more generally, political agendas about the environment are not simply 'givens' to be found existing objectively in nature as, so to speak, a set of instantly recognizable physical issues. To be sure, they tend to be manifested in particular physical problems, but the issue of which issues emerge as environmentally significant in particular cultural contexts, why, and in what forms, is not explicable only in terms of objective physical observation. Rather, such questions are social and cultural. Indeed, notions of 'the environment' in particular contexts have been social constructions, the products of frequently turbulent processes of social 'negotiation' in complex cultural settings, rather than self-evident sets of easily identified physical problems for which 'solutions' must then be sought" [3]. The main problem with any ecologically relevant information is that it can be denied, concealed, distorted or manipulated in the interests of the socially powerful agents or groups. In other words, it
1 Lat. "the part instead of the whole"
may be very difficult to distinguish between the ecologically relevant information and disinformation.
In order to ensure the adequate level of the transparency of any ecologically relevant information the ecologically conscientious nations introduced the so-called integrated pollution control into their ecological policy. One of these nations is the United Kingdom, which adopted the so-called White Paper on the Environment as early as in September 1990. "It maintains that the Government takes a precautionary approach to the control of pollutants, relating the scale of effort to the degree of risk. This basic principle is said to be guided by a number of additional aims: to prevent pollution at source; to minimize the risk to human health and the environment; to encourage and apply the most advanced technical solutions, while recognizing the integrated nature of the environment and the need to achieve the best practicable environmental option; to apply a 'critical loads' approach by assessing the levels of pollutant that local environments can tolerate; and to ensure that the polluter pays for the necessary controls. The White Paper states that these principles are united in a new system of 'integrated pollution control" [2].
Since the nineteenth century, the control of air pollution in the United Kingdom had been divided between national and local bodies: the Alkali Act of 1863 created a national inspectorate to regulate emissions of hydrochloric acid gas from alkali works, while the Public Health Act of 1875 empowered local authorities to abate nuisances caused by smoke [2]. This division of responsibility was preserved under subsequent legislation, so that industrial air pollution remained the responsibility of national inspectors, whereas smoke, dust, and grit from domestic chimneys and combustion processes were policed by local authorities. Local authorities were also originally responsible for controlling water pollution under the Rivers Pollution Prevention Act of 1876, but their functions were transferred successively to river boards, river authorities, and water authorities; those regional bodies were replaced in 1989 by a single agency, the National Rivers Authority, which now regulates water pollution throughout England and Wales. In contrast, the management of waste disposal on land is a comparatively modern development, and is administered on a local basis. Although local authorities have long possessed powers under public health legislation to remove refuse and abate nuisances from the accumulation of noxious matter, it was not until the implementation of the Control of Pollution Act of 1974 that they were given comprehensive responsibilities for dealing with domestic and industrial waste [2]. Thus, the traditional British approach to pollution control has been to divide the environment into sectors, and allocate the custodianship of each to one or more local, regional, or national authority. However, in
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recent years, it has often been recognized that air, water, and land are in fact interdependent, and that substances discharged into one medium may have damaging impacts in another.
For example, chemical fertilizers and sewage sludge spread on agricultural land or toxic waste buried in landfill disposal sites may leach into watercourses. Sulphur dioxide and oxides of nitrogen emitted into the atmosphere from conventional power stations, large industrial combustion plants, and motor vehicles can produce acid rain that erodes buildings and kills trees and fish. Likewise, atmospheric emissions of carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels contribute to the greenhouse effect, which may lead to global warming and a consequent rise in sea level. Again, the release into the air of chlorofluorocarbons from aerosols, refrigerators, solvents, and air conditioning systems may deplete the ozone layer, resulting in increased ultraviolet radiation that may cause skin cancers, damage crops and harm the marine food chain. Moreover, unless pollutants can be eliminated altogether, they are simply transformed or transferred elsewhere, and measures taken to reduce pollution in one environmental medium may create problems for another. For instance, when flue gas desulphurization equipment is fitted to power stations in order to reduce air pollution from emissions of Sulphur dioxide, the 'scrubbing' process produces by-products of contaminated water and lime that must be discharged into the aqueous environment or disposed of as waste on land. It is clearly desirable, therefore, that all the potential polluting effects of an activity should be taken into account before it is permitted to take place. Yet, in the past, the role of the regulatory authorities has been confined to protecting the particular medium entrusted to them, and their insularity has been compounded by the public law doctrine of ultra vires, which precludes them from acting for purposes beyond their statutory brief [2].
In April 1987, Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Pollution (HMIP) was formed from a combination of the existing Industrial Air Pollution Inspectorate (successor to the Alkali Inspectorate), the Radiochemical Inspectorate and the Hazardous Waste Inspectorate; it was also given new functions in the control of water pollution. The Royal Commission had also proposed the principle that wastes should be disposed of according to the 'best practicable environmental option' (BPEO), and in 1984 the Government declared its acceptance of this idea. A BPEO is the outcome of a systematic consultative and decision-making procedure which emphasizes the protection of the environment across land, air and water. The BPEO procedure establishes, for a given set of objectives, the option that provides the most benefit or least damage to the environmental as a whole, at acceptable cost,
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in the long term as well as the short term. In July 1988, the Department of the Environment produced consultative proposals for the introduction of a system of 'integrated pollution control' (IPC) incorporating the BPEO principle [2]. In due course, another important principle of the integrated pollution control was elaborated. It is called the best available techniques not entailing excessive cost (BATNEEC). The principle is used to prevent and minimize the release of prescribed substances, and to render harmless any that are released [4]. In a prosecution for breach of this general condition, the onus will be placed on the accused to prove that there was no better available technique not entailing excessive cost than was in fact used. Since this involves the logically questionable task of proving that something does not exist, the burden of proof will be difficult to discharge [2].
Conclusion:
1. The traditional British approach to pollution control has been to divide the environment into sectors, and allocate the custodianship of each to one or more local, regional, or national authority. However, in recent years, it has often been recognized that air, water, and land are in fact interdependent, and that substances discharged into one medium may have damaging impacts in another.
2. In April 1987, Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Pollution (HMIP) was formed from a combination of the existing Industrial Air Pollution Inspectorate (successor to the Alkali Inspectorate), the Radi-ochemical Inspectorate and the Hazardous Waste Inspectorate; it was also given new functions in the control of water pollution. The Royal Commission had also proposed the principle that wastes should be disposed of according to the 'best practicable environmental option' (BPEO), and in 1984 the Government declared its acceptance of this idea.
3. The British Government takes a precautionary approach to the control of pollutants, relating the scale of effort to the degree of risk. This basic principle is corroborated by a number of additional aims: to prevent pollution at source; to minimize the risk to human health and the environment; to encourage and apply the most advanced technical solutions, while recognizing the integrated nature of the environment and the need to achieve the best practicable environmental option; to apply a 'critical loads' approach by assessing the levels of pollutant that local environments can tolerate; and to ensure that the polluter pays for the necessary controls. The White Paper of the British Government states that these principles are united
in a new system of 'integrated pollution control'.
4. In due course, another important principle of the integrated pollution control was elaborated. It is called the best available techniques not entailing excessive cost (BATNEEC). This principle was elaborated in order to prevent and minimize the release of prescribed substances, and to render harmless any of them that are released. In a prosecution for breach of this general condition, the onus will be placed on the accused to prove that there was no better available technique not entailing excessive cost than was in fact used.
Spisok literatury:
[1] Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. - Code of Practice on Litter and Refuse [2006]. - London. - 2019. - pp. 59.
[2] Gibson J. The Integration of Pollution Control. - Journal of Law and Society. - Vol. 18. - No. 1. -Law, Policy and the Environment. - Spring. - 1991. -pp. 18-31.
[3] Grove - White R. Land Use Law and the Environment. - Journal of Law and Society. - Vol. 18. - No. 1. Law, Policy and the Environment. - Spring. -1991. - pp. 32-47.
[4] Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Pollution. -Best Practicable Means: General Principles and Practice. - 1988. - BPM 1.
[5] Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution, '12th Report on the Best Practicable Environmental Option', RCEP, London. -1988.
[6] Uttlesford District Council. - Environmental Code of Development Practice. - 2011. - pp. 16
[7] Waste Management Paper. - No 28. - Recycling HMSO. - London. - 1991.
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