Analytics Publications Ecology

Dmitriy Motorin for Revista Direito GV: A new legal concept for understanding the essence of production and consumption waste: a view from Russia

Recently, production and consumption waste has been recognized as a distinct legal category in the environmental law of the Russian Federation. This regulatory category has been changed several times within a short period. The study evidences that these changes were ontological, resulting from a change in approach to the distinction of waste from other results of economic activity. In practice, these changes introduced new characteristics into the concept of waste, each of which is related to one of the approaches to understanding the essence of waste identified by the authors of the article. The article reveals handicaps of earlier and contemporary approaches to understanding the legal essence of waste in Russia.

Based on the results of the study, a new subjective approach is proposed. This approach can serve as a starting point for shaping a new conceptual understanding of waste able to improve environmental law and promote quality enforcement.

The financial resources to remedy the consequences of an industrial accident

During work with hazardous production facilities, including hydraulic engineering facilities, there is potential risk in the form of accidents and other emergencies. Currently, there is no unified approach – either in terms of legislation or judicial practice – to how the process of remedying the consequences of industrial accidents is financed, or to how the list of people accountable for remedying these consequences is determined.

Review of legislative changes in the energy sphere in October 2016

In October 2016, the focus of changes to normative regulations in the energy sector was directed on the specifics of activities of network organizations. In particular, they tightened the criteria for classifying owners of transmission facilities as network organizations, corrected was the procedure of technological connections to electric networks, in order to strengthen accountability for delays in the implementation of technological connection measures, and adjusted was the procedure for calculating the amount of electric energy losses during transmission through electric grids of territorial grid organizations. In addition, revised were the standards for assigning the status of a guaranteeing supplier to an organization, the definition and (or) change in the boundaries of the zones of activity of guaranteeing suppliers.