Criminal law counteraction to land pollution in the EU countries: searching for the optimal model

The main goal of the article is to study both advantages and disadvantages of the approaches of the European Union (EU) states to criminal law prevention of land pollution. As a result of this an optimal legislative model should be developed to protect this element of the environment from criminal encroachment, which can be further used by the EU states in improving existing or creating new rules aimed at criminal law protection of land resources from pollution or the creation of new rules aimed at criminal law protection of land resources from pollution. The following research methods have been used to study criminal law provisions of the selected countries, to prove the stated hypotheses and to formulate conclusions: comparative law, system analysis, formal-logical, dialectical and modeling method. As a result of the study of various models of criminal law protection of land resources embodied in the legislation of nineteen European Union states, it has been proved that: 1) such protection should be carried out by a single universal rule on criminal liability for pollution not only of land but also of other components of the environment (water, air, forest); 2) only such land pollution shall be considered criminal, which has led to real (non-potential) damage to the environment, human health or property damage; 3) liability for land pollution should be differentiated depending on: a) weather guilty person’s act was intentional or negligent; b) what the consequences of land pollution have been.