Abstract
Human life and survival on Earth depend on the exploitation of diverse resources, including water. Improper use of environmental resources will lead to pollution and destruction. As one of the most sensitive areas of the environment to which human life depends, water is exposed to a variety of environmental pollutants. The protection of the health of water resources has created the need for intervention and the use of legal and criminal solutions in organizing their use. Domestic penal policy in the field of legislation, inspired by the provisions of Sharia law, along with local and national considerations for the protection of water resources, has directly and indirectly affected the requirements of accession to international instruments and has enacted regulations on the protection of small water resources.
TopIntroduction
About seven-sevenths of the earth's surface is covered by water. In addition to being rich in food, water also has huge oil and gas resources (Gleick, 1998). For this reason, this vital resource is increasingly being exploited by humans. Extensive use has caused these resources as a large part of the environment to be exposed to the most diverse and serious environmental damage. With this industry, profound changes have taken place in various economic, social and cultural spheres. With the expansion of industries, there was a great need to exploit the natural resources that are used in the fields of energy supply and raw materials, it was felt that in proportion to increasing demand, the rate of human intervention in the natural environment, including water resources, has increased every year. The penetration of various pollutants into natural environments such as water sources increases. Extensive water resources such as springs, streams and small rivers as sources of drinking water have been exposed to many risks due to the influx of industrial and agricultural wastewater and the entry of solid waste from them. Extensive water resources from the tribes and oceans, which have been important since ancient times in terms of transportation and food reserves, are now exposed to flooding with the advancement of technology and as a result of the discovery of mineral and energy reserves (Alan, 2017).
The sources that have been identified as the cause and source of water pollution are divided into two categories: land-based and ship-based. Among the types of pollutants, oil and petroleum products have a very large role in creating water pollution. Crude oil is composed of a combination of saturated hydrocarbons, aromatics, resin and asphaltene (Alan, 2017) which is very dangerous for aquatic organisms and the marine environment and humans and causes damage. Serious illnesses become like cancer (Alan, 2017). Areas in which oil reserves are present are very limited and specific, and are usually far from the consumer markets of most industrialized countries, so every year in significant quantities of these materials, on the way to the consumer markets, the amount It is estimated at 320 million tons (Gleick, 1998), enters the water life cycle.
Our country, due to its location in the Persian Gulf oil basin, where most of the world's oil resources are located (Alan, 2017), is facing harmful damages due to the entry of these substances into the biological cycles. In this article, an attempt has been made to review the domestic and international documents to which our country has joined, to review the policies and policies adopted in relation to various types of pollutants, and to ask these two questions.
- 1.
What are the criminal policies of the legislature at the national level in the face of various types of water pollution?
- 2.
What measures have been taken regarding water pollution in the transnational documents to which the Islamic Republic of Iran has acceded?
In the protection of the aquatic environment, one of the most basic issues that must be determined is the concept and content of pollution. The Iranian legislature, in paragraph A of Article 1 of the Law on the Protection of Navigable Seas and Rivers against Contamination with Petroleum Products, approved on 6/31/2010, discharges or contaminates the discharge or the leakage of oil or oil or oil reservoirs or oil reserves. Has been stated. The disadvantage of the above definitions is that instead of a substantive definition that is comprehensive of the types of pollution, it is sufficient to express some examples of pollution (Alan, 2017).
Among the previous laws, we can mention Article 1 of the Law on the Protection of Marine and River Marziaz Contamination of Petroleum Products, approved on 11/14/1975, in which pollution is also mentioned in some cases, such as oil spills or leaks, or Any oil mixture is defined in the terms covered by this law.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Public Participation and Transparency: identified as necessary conditions for “accountable governments...industrial concerns,” and organizations generally, public participation and transparency are presented by UNEP as requiring “effective protection of the human right to hold and express opinions and to seek, receive and impart ideas...a right of access to appropriate, comprehensible and timely information held by governments and industrial concerns on economic and social policies regarding the sustainable use of natural resources and the protection of the environment, without imposing undue financial burdens upon the applicants and with adequate protection of privacy and business confidentiality,” and “effective judicial and administrative proceedings.” These principles are present in environmental impact assessment, laws requiring publication and access to relevant environmental data, and administrative procedures.
Equity: Defined by UNEP to include intergenerational equity—“the right of future generations to enjoy a fair level of the common patrimony”—and intragenerational equity—“the right of all people within the current generation to fair access to the current generation’s entitlement to the Earth’s natural resources”—environmental equity considers the present generation under an obligation to account for long-term impacts of activities and to act to sustain the global environment and resource base for future generations. Pollution control and resource management laws may be assessed against this principle.
Transboundary Responsibility: Defined in the international law context as an obligation to protect one’s environment and prevent damage to neighboring environments, UNEP considers transboundary responsibility at the international level as a potential limitation on the sovereign state’s rights. Laws that limit externalities imposed upon human health and the environment may be assessed against this principle.
Prevention: The concept of prevention can perhaps better be considered an overarching aim that gives rise to a multitude of legal mechanisms, including prior assessment of environmental harm, licensing or authorization that set out the conditions for operation and the consequences for violation of the conditions, as well as the adoption of strategies and policies. Emission limits and other product or process standards, the use of best available techniques, and similar techniques can all be seen as applications of the concept of prevention.
Polluter Pays Principle: The polluter pays principle stands for the idea that “the environmental costs of economic activities, including the cost of preventing potential harm, should be internalized rather than imposed upon society at large.” All issues related to responsibility for environmental remediation costs and compliance with pollution control regulations involve this principle.
Precautionary Principle: One of the most commonly encountered and controversial principles of environmental law, the Rio Declaration formulated the precautionary principle: To protect the environment, the precautionary approach shall be widely applied by States according to their capabilities. Where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of complete scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent environmental degradation. The principle may play a role in any debate over the need for environmental regulation.