Skvortsova O. The criminal and legal characteristics of illegal felling according to the criminal legislation of Ukraine (based upon the practice of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea)

The thesis represents a complex scientific research of the problems of the criminal and legal characteristics of illegal felling based upon the practice of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea. The author of the thesis has conducted a historical and legal analysis thus revealing the factors that influence the development of the forest regulation as well as the norms of criminal responsibility for illegal felling among other forest regulation infringements. The research of the aforementioned illicit act as an ecological crime along with the peculiarities of its corpus delicti has enabled the author to define the concept of illegal felling. O. V. Skvortsova has analyzed a number of circumstances that eliminate the criminal context in an act of illegal felling (in consideration of extreme need, fulfillment of an order, a deed that involved risk) thus providing legal grounds for releasing a person from criminal responsibility for the act. Upon a comprehensive analysis of the issues discussed in the thesis, its author puts forward a number of propositions regarding possible amendments to article 246 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine