A functional description of the model for the protection of the environmental interests of the Russian Federation in the Baltic Sea region

Abstract

This article identifies the objective conditions of the conflict between the interests of development and those of environmental security. The latter are given added urgency when, within the same ecological unit, one country needs to develop and another to protect its environmental interests. The borders of the countries and regions, the economies of which affect the safety of Russia’s interests in the Baltic, do not coincide with the boundaries of the ecosystems. This calls for a study of the legal protection of Russia’s environmental interests in the Baltic Sea region. There is no legal mechanism for ensuring a balance between the interests of development and those of environmental security of the countries that have shorelines along the Baltic Sea. Thus, it is necessary to give a functional description of the regional model for the legal protection of the environmental interests of the Russian Federation in the Baltic region. To this end, we identify the juridical content of the environmental interests of the Russian Federation. We consider the possibilities of the legal protection of the environmental interests in the national and international jurisdiction. The interests are divided into two groups respectively. We reveal the essence of the environmental interests of the Russian Federation in the Baltic Sea region. We analyse the case of the Russian regions located within the Baltic Sea catchment area to test an approach to identifying the region’s boundaries. This approach may be used in modelling the regional level of the legal protection of Russia’s environmental interests in the Baltic region. We identify the environmental interests of the Russian Federation in the Baltic Sea region, as well as the forms of legal protection of the country’s interests in this territory. We describe the elements of the system of the legal protection of Russia’s interests in the Baltic region and examine the functions of these elements. The result of this study is a functional description of the model of legal protection of the environmental interests of the Russian Federation in the Baltic region. This model may be used to strengthen the links between the elements of the protection of the legitimate interests of the Russian Federation in the Baltic region.

Institutional approach to assessing the transition to a circular economy: the case of the Kaliningrad region

“…In 2017 Russia produced 274.4m 3 of MSW and only 10% of this quantity was transport ed to waste recycling plants (27.9m m 3 ) and 2.2% to incineration plants, whilst 87% was buried. 2 Overflowing authorised landfill sites, mushrooming non-authorised sites, and the absence of a waste segregation system necessitated the 'rubbish reform' of 2017-2019. As of the writing of this article, waste management reform in Russia is not considered to be successful.…”

“…Most of the latter were found in the Leningradsky and Tsen tralny districts, albeit the third city's district, Moskovsky, the largest by area and population had the least of the containers for sorted waste. 10 The Kaliningrad region ranks lowest among Russia's territories located in the Baltic Sea catchment area in the proportion of recycled and processed waste (up to 90% of industrial and household waste remain untreated) [2].…”

“…These characteristics of waste can be combined in order to build following definition that embrace two central properties of waste: waste is (1) useless and unused things and substances which (2) the holder wants to discard in the current institutional environment. 11 The features of MSW covered by this definition suggest that, in the current conditions, waste is a bad that requires elimination.…”

“…Although the transition to the circular economy requires a change in both municipal and industrial waste management, this study will focus solely on municipal solid waste 2. Governmental report On The Conditions and Protection of Environment in the RussianFederation in 2017, 2018, Supervised by the Ministry of Natural resources and Ecology of the Russian Federation.…”