초국가적 환경범죄에 대한 우리나라 환경형법 적용과 관련된 쟁점

Issues Related to the Application of Korea s Environmental Criminal Law to Transnational Environmental Crimes

Environmental pollution, one of the biggest problems in modern society, is developing into a global Issue. Pollution respects no jurisdictional boundaries and knows no boundaries. Representative examples of such pollution include climate change, ozone depletion, acid rain, fine dust, deforestation and loss of biodiversity. These environmental problems are complex and often interrelated with socio-economic factors. It does not recognize political borders and pose major threats to human safety, health and productivity. Due to these threats to human future, it is essential to address these problems. The problem of transfrontier environmental pollution is that it is impossible to find a solution by the efforts of a particular country or region. This requires international collaboration on both bilateral and multilateral level and the active participation of all members of the international community. The international joint efforts to cope with these international environmental issues have given rise to the field of ‘international environmental law’. Nowadays, it is building a large area in its character and contents. And in the area of criminal law, the problem of transboundary environmental pollution is dealt with under the name of ‘international environmental criminal law’ or ‘transnational environmental criminal law’. Therefore, in this paper, we first outline the types of transboundary environmental pollution and the role of transnational environmental criminal law in relation to transboundary environmental pollution (Ⅱ). And this paper examines combination of territorial principle and ubiquity theory, which can expand the scope of domestic (environmental) criminal law for foreign-related crimes, the issue of the application of protectionism under Article 6 of the korean Criminal Code, the validity of presumption of causality, which is provided in Article 11 of Act on Special Measures for the Control of Environmental for easing proof burden of causality, and introduction of cumulative crime to fundamentally resolve the problem of proof difficulties of causality(Ⅲ). In conclusion, in order to deal with transnational environmental crimes, environmental policy or energy policy, not international environmental criminal law, should be considered as the top priority (Ⅳ).