Актуальные проблемы защиты экологических прав граждан в Российской Федерации

In the modern post-industrial era, when the level of the environment has become an important factor in the quality of life, health and well-being of people, the right to a favorable environment is one of the fundamental environmental rights. Despite certain efforts undertaken by the world community to create effective mechanisms to overcome the environmental crisis, environmental degradation is still observed in many countries, including the Russian Federation, which leads to a decrease in the number of healthy population, and, therefore, is direct threat to society and the state. Consequently, the relevance of the research topic is determined by the fact that environmental rights as an important component of the constitutional status of an individual do not currently have an adequate level of legislative guarantees for their implementation; therefore, the need to create an effective mechanism for the implementation of these rights, the provision and protection of which should be implemented taking into account domestic and international human rights experience in this area. The subject of the study was the norms of international law, the legislation of the Russian Federation, as well as decisions of the European Court of Human Rights and the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation, legal literature materials affecting the content of environmental human rights, as well as certain issues of their implementation and protection. The following methods were the methodological basis of the study: 1) historical (development of the Institute of Environmental Human Rights); 2) the methods of analysis, synthesis and comparison were applied when considering various points of view on the complex nature of constitutionally enshrined environmental rights; 3) systemic and structural-functional methods made it possible to identify the role of the rights in question; 4) the formal legal method was used in the analysis of international legal acts, legislation of the Russian Federation, decisions of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation on controversial issues; 5) the statistical method was used to indicate high environmental pollution in general. Conclusions: in the process of analyzing regulatory legal acts and judicial practice of the Russian Federation, including the first case for compensation for non-pecuniary damage caused to the health of citizens and examined by the Ozyorsk city court of the Chelyabinsk region, as well as the practice of the European Court of Human Rights, we have identified significant environmental protection problems rights: the complexity of the system of proving the existence of harm caused to the life and health of citizens, its causal relationship with the economic activities of legal entities or individuals, non-enforcement of court decisions, lack of legislative consolidation of criteria for a favorable environment. Ways are proposed to increase the effectiveness of judicial protection by eliminating deficiencies in the current legislation, the idea was expressed of creating environmental courts in Russia, since courts of general jurisdiction are unable to effectively administer justice in the field of protecting the environment and human health.