Some trends of developing the institute of environmental rights of citizens

The article discusses the concept, content and the classification of citizens' environmental rights. The authors reveal two trends in the development of environmental rights institute in modern Russian legal system. The first trend is active legislative recognition of the need to respect and implement the environmental rights of citizens. With this view, the article examines the strategic and conceptual environmental documents: Principles of state policy in the field of environmental development of the Russian Federation for the period till 2030; State Program of the Russian Federation "Forestry development" for 2013-2020 years; Russian State Program "Environment Protection" for 2012-2020 years, etc. The second trend is the infringement and limitation of citizens' environmental rights by statutory acts. In order to identify the implicit, indirect cases of environmental rights violation, the authors study the norms of natural-resources and environmental legislation (the Forest Code of the Russian Federation, the Federal Law "On protection of atmospheric air". The conclusion: the indirect violation uncludes the misinterpretation, failure to perform the corresponding responsibilities of other persons and state officials on ensuring the environmental rights of citizens and lawful actions on implementing their own rights. The article considers the norms that contribute to the violation of the rights of citizens to a healthy environment (for example, restricting the civil rights to freely stay in forests by enclosing woodlots or permitted air pollution by establishing temporarily agreed emissions). The authors suggest the ways of environmental rights protection.