International environmental safety as object of crimes, leading to possibility of legal entities’ criminal liability

The urgency of the problem under investigation is conditioned by the fact that currently remains unresolved question of criminal liability of legal persons. The laws of some countries provide for criminal liability of legal persons for committing environmental crimes. Russian Federation Criminal Code does not establish that responsibility, but there are some circumstances, including the international obligations of the Russian Federation, enabling to speak about the need to intensify the process of thinking about the possibility to provide it for some environmental crimes. The purpose of the paper is to determine the theoretical premises of possibility to establish the criminal liability of legal persons for the commission of crimes that infringe on the international environmental safety. As a leading approach to the study of this problem is selected a comparison of theoretical approaches to issues of criminal liability of legal persons, the system analysis of materials of international treaties and conferences, focusing on efforts to institutionalize the possibility of involvement of persons accused of assault on the natural environment in the criminal liability. In the result of the study of the legal nature of responsibility questions for acts that infringe on the international ecological safety, the necessity to establish mechanisms of these decisions is justified, conclusions on the need for a decision on the institutionalization of the criminal liability of legal persons for certain environmental offenses is formulated. Paper submissions may be useful to support and normatively consolidate the features of the legal entity’s responsible for the commission of environmental offenses. © 2016 V. V. Grebennikov, B. V. Sangadzhiev and E. V. Vinogradova.