ENCROACHMENT ON BIOLOGICAL SAFETY OF UKRAINE: CRIMINAL LEGAL CHARACTERISTIC

Abstract

The issue of the criminal legal protection of biological safety of Ukraine, which is new for the national criminal legal doctrine, is studied. Proposed the author's concept of com-bining criminal offences, that encroach on the biological safety of Ukraine, into a single sys-tem, in particular, it is offered to consider the social relations in the sphere of ensuring the biological safety of Ukraine as the generic object of such criminal offences. The meaning of the terms "biologocal safety" and "threats of biological origin (biothreats)" is defined. It is proposed to divide biothreats on the basis of their focus on direct and indirect ones. Out-lined the types of human activity that are biologically dangerous and formulated a defini-tion of criminal offences against biological safety. The only criterion is generated: it is a threat of biological origin created by a wrongful act for the object of criminal legal protection. Based on this criterion, it is identified specific criminal offences in the Special Part of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, that can consider to be encroachments on the biological safety of Ukraine. According to the focus of biothreats, encroachments on the biological safety of Ukraine are grouped into criminal offences that pose direct (Articles 113, 130, 131, 133, 142, 247, 251, 325, 326, 439, 441 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine) and indirect biothreats (Articles 236, 237, 239, 241, 242, 243, 253, 261, 440, Part 2 of Article 268 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine). Depending on the nature of the offences, each group of criminal offences against biological safety is conditionally divided into three subgroups and provided their criminal legal characteristic. The article gives author's defini-tions of "infection" and "contamination". It has been defined that for the majority of the of-fences against the biological safety of Ukraine, a subject or a victim is a mandatory objective characteristic; from the objective side, most of them are characterized by an act that consti-tutes a violation of certain biosafety rules, and by a socially dangerous consequence in the form of causing damage to biota as a result of the negative impact of biological pathogenic agents or in the form of creating a danger of such a consequence. The dispositions of the vast majority of the considered criminal law norms are blanket. Expressed a warning that of all the selected criminal offences, only some of them are absolute encroachments on the biological safety of Ukraine, and the rest of them combine a socially dangerous impact on a person or environment with the help of biological, physical, chemical and other factors. Made a conclusion that he Criminal Code of Ukraine does not fully ensure the criminal legal protection of social relations in the sphere of biological safety of Ukraine. Specific areas of criminalization of dangerous genetic manipulations that create biological threats are offered.