Strengthening environmental legislation in accordance with Russia’s international obligations

The relevance of the study is determined by the need to fulfill the obligations of the Russian Federation under the Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage and the decisions of the World Heritage Committee. The purpose of the analysis is to determine the appropriate ways to improve the Russian legislation in terms of strengthening the regime of protection of the World Natural Heritage. The materials of the study are the provisions of international treaties, decisions of the World Heritage Committee, provisions of the Russian environmental legislation and draft regulations. The study applies formal-legal, comparative-legal and system-structural methods. The main results of the study include the development of the theoretical construction of sui generis specially protected area, justification of the necessity to recognize the central ecological zone of the Baikal natural territory as a specially protected natural territory. The author describes the best ways to improve the legislation on the protection of World Natural Heritage properties in terms of preparing management plans and assessing the impact on their ecological condition. The conclusion states the need to establish in the legislation the specifics of protection of other international legal regimes of nature protection (for example, Ramsar sites).