Responsibility for Animal Cruelty: the Criminal-Legal Aspect

The formation of the Concept of animal Protection in Russia is recognized as an important direction of regulating the relationship between humans and the world around them. The issues of responsibility for encroachment on them are given quite close attention both at the international and national levels; they are actively discussed by both specialists and the public. Special attention is paid to criminal law measures. Unfortunately, they are not perfect, partly due to the legislator’s use of many evaluation categories (animal, cruelty to him, juvenile, mutilation, etc.), which have not received an unambiguous interpretation either in theory or in practice. In the proposed article, the authors have made efforts to comprehend them and present their views on ways to improve the current version of the law.