Direito penal ambiental, progresso e catástrofe: a responsabilização criminal da pessoa jurídica sob o prisma do sistema axiológico no ordenamento brasileiro

Abstract

In the context of accelerated destruction of nature, the desire to curb degrading practices to the environment has led to the demand for expansion of the sphere of protection of criminal law in order to punish legal entities that act illicitly. In view of this, the present text verifies whether the criminal liability of legal entities would be in consonance with the systematics of the Brazilian legal system and its constitutional-principles matrix. By hypothesis, the criminal liability of such an abstract entity is considered inadequate, and it is relevant to explore the effectiveness of civil and administrative sanctions as an alternative to the protection of that good. The hermeneutic-phenomenological method is based on Walter Benjamin's notions of ideology of progress and catastrophe. In conclusion, the criminal liability of the legal entity appears as something incompatible with the penal-constitutional axioms, not presenting itself as the best way to contain the world-eating machine of neoliberal capitalism.