La tutela penale dell'ambiente tra passato e futuro

The paper analyses the evolution of the Italian environmental criminal law, focusing the attention on the principal issues that jurisprudential practice has traditionally faced. Moreover, the contribution critiques the distortions of the general categories of criminal law (in particular, abstract danger and crimes against the public safety), connected with the judicial effort to ensure – seen the precautionary principle – an adequate protection of the environment, with all its basic elements (soil, air, water). The Author, then, examines the new criminal offences – environmental pollution and disaster – introduced with the Law No. 68/2015 in the Italian Penal Code. While being an appreciable attempt of the Italian Legislator, in order to solve the issues which have raised in the last decades of judicial experience, the reform arouses perplexities not only from a criminal policy perspective, but also for the use of unclear and imprecise legal definitions.