From 3 June to 25 August, an exhibition "The fate of the earth through the prism of the right" dedicated to the Year of environmental culture and the environment in the CIS runs in the Legal Information Reading Room (room 207b).

At the beginning of the third millennium, we realized that to save life on Earth is impossible within one country, even in the most prosperous. Environmental threats are interrelated, they cross national borders and must be solved through the effective collaboration of all states. To save the biosphere and to prevent an environmental disaster is necessary for us at the same extent as to keep the peace and prevent a nuclear threat. That is why the struggle for peace and the preservation of the ecological balance of the planet have become key objectives of international policy and all humanity and they make today the international community to seek a way out of the crisis.

According to the World Health Organization, 24 % of the disease burden (disability adjusted life years) and 23 % of all deaths (premature mortality) can be attributed to environmental factors.

The Stockholm Declaration adopted at the UN Conference on the Human Environment (1972), the World Charter for Nature endorsed by the UN General Assembly (1982) and the Declaration of the UN Conference on Environment and Sustainable Development (1992), Aarhus Convention (1998) stated a human right on a healthy and favorable environment the most important human rights.

Such cross-border problems such as water pollution and global climate change, ozone depletion or reduction of migratory species should be regulated at the international level and include aspects of international environmental safety. However, in many cases these problems are local in nature and therefore are governed by bilateral and multilateral agreements within the organizations at the regional level.

In 2013, the Commonwealth of Independent States declared in its countries the Year of ecological culture and environmental protection. Environmental problem faces every state – member of the CIS in particular and to the whole community as a whole. The Inter-Parliamentary Assembly of the CIS States conducts the harmonization of legislation in this sphere. In the framework of IPA the CIS adopted 45 laws which are anyhow related to the protection of the environment. However, not all of them have been used in the development of national legislation of the CIS.

Environmental security in the Republic of Belarus is one of the links of national security and the preservation where the sustainable use of natural resources is one of the priorities of the state policy.

The Constitution of the Republic of Belarus states that every person has the right to a favorable environment, to get reliable information about its condition and to get a compensation for damage caused to his health or property by ecological violations.

In our country there are more than 50 environmental NGOs. The founder of the social ecology movement is the Belarusian Society of Nature Conservation which has existed for 40 years.

Belarus has signed a large number of international documents for the protection of the environment and is a member of many international environmental organizations. It promotes to develop environmental legislation of the Republic of Belarus in accordance with the world and European trends in this field.

Every year a topic of cross-border cooperation in the field of environmental protection is more and more urgent. The accumulation of experience in cross-border co-operation can prevent the beginning of tensions with neighboring countries and can turn all the contentious issues in the legal field.

Activities that are passed by the Commonwealth in the Year of ecological culture and environmental protection will favor cooperation in this field and help to maintain favorable conditions for life on Earth for present and future generations. The exhibition presents about 50 documents: books, booklets, periodicals.

The exhibition includes the following sections:

The international documents that regulate relations in the field of environmental protection;
The legal documents of the CIS countries on the regulation of the environmental safety;
The state policy in the field of ecology.

The exhibition is recommended to everyone who is interested in the problems of environmental law and the preservation of the natural balance of our planet.

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The fate of the earth through the prism of the right

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