Research On The Crime Of The Water Resource In China

The economy in China has experienced a remarkable growth thanks to theChina’s reform and open-up policy. But such growth takes place at the cost ofenvironmental resources with the water resource being the most significant “victim”.Today the pollution to the water resource in China has been severe enough to posegreat threats to the life and health of the citizens. The crime concerning the pollutionto the water resource (hereinafter referred to as the “Crime”) has been regarded as amajor issue to our daily life. Thus, the research on the legal issues of the Crime isessentially important to safeguard the state stability and maintain social developments.Since the civil law and the administrative law fail to regulate the pollution, thecriminal law becomes an indispensable tool to protect the water resources. However,the criminal legislation with regard to the Crime has many problems, such as thebiased legislative intent. no separate crime name, unreasonable punishment and etc.The legislation of the western countries, including both civil law nd common lawcountries, towards the Crime went through a long history of development. Duringthis period, a number of theories with regard to the criminal legislation inenvironmental field sprung up. Based on those theories, many countries adopteddistinctive legislation models against the Crime with those of German, Japan, UK andUS being the most typical.The Eighth Amendment to the Criminal Law and the Interpretation on SeveralIssues in the Application of Law on Handling Criminal Cases concerning Environmental Pollution Issued by the People’s Supreme Court and the People’sSupreme. Procuratorate made significant modification to the prior “EnvironmentalPollution Accident Crime”. The newly added “Environmental Pollution Crime”seems to have positive development, but in essence it remains traditional legislationwith no good to the protection of natural resources. Thus, under the guidance of theethics concerning environmental legislation, it is necessary to dissolve Article338(i.e.“Environmental Pollution Crime”) of the Criminal Law through an additionalmodification, treat different environmental factors separately and specify relevantcriminal punishment as well as conditions for the constitution of the crime for thepurpose of perfecting the legislation in connection with the Crime.Except for the Introduction Chapter, this paper consists of three parts:The first part introduces the distribution, consumption, and pollution of waterresources in China, highlighting the necessity of protecting water resources.Compared with the approaches adopted by the civil law and administrative law, thecriminal law approach prevails in the protection of the water resources. In the end,this part would analysis the weakness of the criminal law in protecting the waterresources.The second part describes the patterns of the western countries in the criminallegislation towards the Crime, including the evolution as well as the characteristics ofthe ethics concerning environmental legislation, and other countries’ distinctivelegislation, such as Germany, Japan, UK and US.The third part analyses what theenvironmental ethics should be adopted by the China’s legislation and proposesimprovement from three perspectives to perfect the China’s legislation in connectionwith the Crime, i.e. setting up a separate crime name, a reasonable punishment modeland complete conditions for the constitution of the crime.