The socialist society is founded upon public ownership and management of nonconsumption assets; the government is required to act as a conservator. This function has proved to be incompatible with "socialist legality," the ideal that the government should adhere to a known law.
I - SOVIET ENVIRONMENTAL LAW: GENERAL ANALYSIS
Article 14 of the original Constitution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics declared all natural resources, lands, minerals and forests to be the property of the state, incapable of private ownership and exploitation: thus government action was necessary to preserve the environment or remedy pollution. Article 67 of the 1977 Constitution obligates citizens to "protect nature and conserve its riches."
Under the 1968 Fundamental Land Legislation of the Supreme Soviet, the lands of the Union are divided into six uses: (1) agricultural lands, which are granted "permanently" to organizations and individuals, (2) settlement lands outside existing cities, (3) lands occupied by industry, transportation, health resorts and nature reserves, (4) state forest lands, (5) state water resources lands, and (6) state reserve lands. Lands may be withdrawn from economic exploitation in four categories, rendered by Schoenbaum1 as nature reserves, natural monuments, national parks, and ecological reserves.2 The first two may be either permanent or temporary, to protect an endangered species. National parks are open to the public, and resemble the national parks of the United States. Ecological reserves are dedicated to scientific study of the functioning of ecological systems: they are established in all the biomes and ecological zones of the Union to preserve "standards of nature" for each type. These reserves are to allow the measurement of the effect of human activity on the environment, and provide "pools" of genetic material to effect the survival of species. The hundreds of
ecological reserves are...