The Axiological Approach to the Regulation of the Right to a Favourable Environment

• Author: Mikhail Permilovskiy
• Pages: 14-37

162

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The Axiological Approach to

the Regulation of the Right to

a Favourable Environment

Mikhail Permilovskiy

Ph.D student of the Northern (Arctic) Federal University named after M. Lomonosov,

Arkhangelsk, The Rus sian Federation. E-mail: permilovsky@mail.ru.

Received November 2011, accepted March 2012

Abstract: e art icle is devoted to the problems of the integrative function of

axiology as a special philosophic area which studies the ax iological phenomena

of objective realit y. e analysis of dierent interpretations of values in philo-

sophical, general legal and ecological sense is fullled. e axiological approach

in regulation of the rig ht to a favourable (healthy) environment is expressed in

its al lotment with particular primacy in relation to other main human rights

and freedoms. In this article the ecological problems of the Arctic and the ques-

tions of its development are examined. Attention is focused on the problems of

international cooperation in the eld of environmental protection of the Arctic

as well as on the ways of preserv ing its sustainable development. In the present

article t he ecological situation in Arctic countries is examined in terms of the

Arkhangelsk region of the Russian Federation. e signicance of law enforce-

ment in protection of ecological human rights and the role of the axiological

approach in the practice of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation

(CCRF) are investigated. In the article the problems of compensation for dam-

ages caused by infringements on ecological law are determined, and an attempt

is made at solving these. Signicant attention is paid to the necessity of theoreti-

cal and practical usage of the axiological approach in the regulation of the right

to a favourable (healthy) environment on the international and domestic levels.

Keywords: Arctic, axiology, ecology, value, right to a favourable environment,

health, best existing technologies.

Arctic Revie w on Law and Politics, vol. 3 , 2/2012 pp. 162–185. ISSN 1891-6252

the axiolo gical app roach to the regul ation of (…)

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1. Introduction

e axiologica l problems of law as a whole and of certain human rights become

more and more actual, because aer the Second World War the law began to en-

courage the arrangements of social conditions assuring wort hy life and free de-

velopment, and an individual with his rights and freedoms was recognized as the

supreme value. ough in the Human Rights Declaration 1948, the International

Covenant on Civil and Political Rights 1966, European Convention for the

Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms 1950, the approach of

law and human self-value supremacy was used, man’s rights and freedoms are

not always observed and defended, a nd the axiological approach to the regula-

tion of rights and freedoms is legally formalized only on an exceptional basis (for

example, Spain Constitution 1978, Germany Nature Conservation and Landscape

Management Law 2010 (the latter mentions nature value)).

2. Concept and Importance of the Axiological

Approach

In philosophy, “values” means specic social denitions of surrounding world ob-

jects which reveal their positive and negative value for man and society (e.g., ben-

et, good, evil, the beautiful and the ugly contained in social and nature phenom-

ena). To a man, values serve as the points of his interests, and for his consciousness

full the function of everyday landmarks in object and social reality, designation

of his dierent practical attitudes to surrounding objects and phenomena.1

e essential role in t he explanation and development of the value theory was

played by Immanuel Kant, who considered the behaviour committed by “the sense

of duty” as “a moral value.” Kant described this point the following way: e sense

of duty objectively requires the action to be committed in full accordance with the

law, and subjectively it mea ns “a respect for law” as the only way of a wi ll deter-

mination. In the rst case actions are committed “according to the duty,” in the

second from “the sense of duty.”2

On this basis, coincidence of statute and its subjective estimate in the long run

promote the eciency of legal regulation.

1. Philosophical dictionary / Philosophical digital library, http://losof.historic.ru/enc/item/f00/

s12/a001248.shtml (accessed November 3, 2010). Filosofskiiy slovar / Filosofskaya tsif rovaya

biblioteka.

2. Immanuel Kant, Lections on ethics, “Republic” Press, Moscow 2000, pp. 344–345. Immanuel

Kant, Lektsii po etike, Izdatelstvo “Respublika,” Moskva, 2000, 344–345.