employee
Russian Federation
Russian Federation
The relevance of this topic increases annually in proportion to the rapid development of the Arctic. The process of developing the northernmost region of the planet is associated with the further development of scientific and technological progress. On the one hand, it marks convincing successes in the leading sectors of human economic activity, but, on the other hand, it exacerbates the processes of anthropogenic impact on the environment, often causing natural and man–made emergencies (hereinafter referred to as emergencies). The authors of the article set out to investigate the quality and content of international legislation that plays an important role in protecting the Arctic environment and countering the occurrence of various kinds of emergencies. Based on the research data obtained, it was possible to identify the "weak links" of conventions and agreements that entered into force more than 30 years ago and to present their point of view on their "restoration" by replacing outdated legal novels with new definitions and provisions that meet the requirements of international environmental law in the field under consideration. To prove this, the authors cited the example of the Polar Code, which incorporated the most valuable of the 1973 conventions and has now proved its uniqueness, both from the point of view of legal theory and practical application. However, the Polar Code, according to the authors, has some legal disadvantages that reduce its quality. In order to eliminate them, the authors made proposals for further refinement of the second part of the Code concerning the legal protection of waters from pollution, eliminating from part 2 of subparagraph 2 "a" the "double meaning" of the articles, which consists in a simultaneous combination of prohibition and permission of dumping from ships of residual transported cargo, harmful mixtures and accumulated garbage. The authors also justified the proposal to include in the Polar Code a section on the responsibility of subjects for violating environmental requirements when operating vessels in northern waters. Thus, the Polar Code, which entered into force for the Russian Federation on January 1, 2017 as the "International Code for Ships Operating in Polar Waters", for the first time defined the legal regime for the operation of ships in extreme conditions of the north and laid the foundation for the protection of marine waters from pollution
Polar Code, Arctic Environmental Protection Strategy; Natural and man-made emergencies; International Maritime Organization (IMO)
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