State legal mechanism for ensuring environmental and technogenic safety

In the light of the ongoing state administration reform, it is relevant to examine the state legal mechanism for ensuring environmental and technogenic security as the types of national security. The subject of this research is the definition of the concept and structure of such mechanism, which is an essential condition for ensuring the protection of favorable environment; observance of the interests of citizens and legal entities, society and the state; prevention of threats of natural and technogenic emergency situations; and minimization of the consequences of such situations. On the institutional level, the state legal mechanism for ensuring environmental safety represents the system of governing institutions assigned with the implementation of the key directions and mechanisms for ensuring environmental and technogenic safety; as well as private and legal entities, whose legal status includes the rights and responsibilities in the sphere of ensuring environmental and technogenic safety. On the technological level, the state legal mechanism is characterized by the types of legal activity. On the instrumental level, it represent a set of means and methods at the disposal of the entities. The scientific novelty of this research lies in examination of the essential aspects of the state legal mechanism for ensuring certain types of national security, as well as in formulation of the concept of the state legal mechanism applicable to ensuring environmental and technogenic safety, the absence of which impedes the assessment of the effectiveness of such mechanism in relation to protection of identity, society, and the state from environmental and technogenic hazards, threats and conflicts. The conclusion is made that a range of problems arises in the context of formation of the state legal mechanism for ensuring environmental safety: the existing model of state regulation of greenhouse gas emissions, which is based on voluntary inventory, obstructs the acquisition of information on the volume of greenhouse gas emissions by the administrative authorities; the created information systems in the sphere of environmental security are not an effective mechanism for achieving the goals of the Strategy of Environmental Security; there is certain inconsistency in environmental surveillance regulation.