Mining Legislation

in the USSR, the system of legal norms defining the jurisdiction of agencies of the USSR and Union and autonomous republics in the field of regulating the use of mineral resources for various national-economic needs, the safe conduct of mining operations, and the procedure for preserving mineral resources. Mining legislation also covers cases concerning the use of mineral resources without the building of facilities (underground storage of petroleum, gas, and other useful substances; the burying of noxious substances; and the discharge of waste water), concerning certain relations in the exploitation of underground water (for example, exploration and prospecting for it and evaluation and compilation of a cadaster of such water), and concerning to some extent land relations (the procedure for construction on areas in which there are deposits of minerals).

The basic sources for Soviet mining legislation are the constitutions of the USSR and Union and autonomous republics, the 1927 Mining Statute of the USSR, individual laws of the Union republics, and resolutions of the Council of Ministers of the USSR and the councils of ministers of Union republics.

Soviet mining legislation is founded on the fact that mineral resources in the USSR, just as the land, forests, and waters, are the exclusive property of the state. Mining-industry enterprises (mines, pits, etc.) are also state property; only small enterprises for the extraction of so-called local building materials (clay, sand) can be owned by cooperative or other public organizations.

Mining legislation establishes a number of legal means that stimulate the fullest and most integrated use of mineral resources in the exploitation of deposits; these regulations avert pollution of the earth’s depths and ensure their rational use in the interests of various branches of the national economy.

Legislation of the USSR and the Union republics has established disciplinary, administrative, criminal, and civic accountability for violation of the regulations for the use and conservation of the earth’s depths, as well as regulations for the safe conduct of mining operations.