환경범죄에 관한 형사법적 고찰

Abstract

The concept of protecting environmrnt by criminal law is quite novel in Korea. The growing importance of criminal law relating to environmental crimes can be imppressively demonstrated by spectacular ecological destruction as well as lingering pollution. In the densely populated and highly industrialized Republic of Korea, the lost 20 years have seen a growing realization that any acts harming and endangering the environment must be opposed using the instrument of criminal law. An 1991 officially (by the "National Commission on Reform of the Korean Criminal Laws")proposed "Draft of New Penal Code" (a governmental proposal) include proposals to criminalize behaviors that pollute enviromnent by dangerous emission and create concrete danger to life and limb, In addition to a Special Regulatory Act on Environmental Crime of 31. May 1991 (Law No.4390), pursuant to Japanese Example - Law for the Punishmentof Crimes relating to the environmental pollution which Adversely Affects the Health of Persons (Law No.142, 1970)-, was enacted. This special crimial law tried to control polluting activies by traditional penal- code-type defintion of offences. But the Law, Like the Draft of New Penal Code, did not succeed to solve the difficulties inherent in such method. Instead, the Law exposed the difficulties like Japanese experience.