Article 35 of the Saudi Environment Law

This Article begins the chapter on violations, their detection and the imposition of penalties, and provides that doing any of the following acts is a violation of the provisions of the Law:

1. Untreated wastewater: dumping, discharging or injecting wastewater or any untreated liquid components into underground wells, any environmental medium, or any area of rock outcrops of aquifers, for any reason whatsoever; so no particular reason can be invoked to justify the act.
2. Ship pollution: marine vessels dumping or discharging any pollutants resulting from ballast water, cargo residues, waste, liquid components, and the dissolution of anti-fouling substances.
3. Hazardous waste: disposing of it in environmental media. Under Article 1, environmental media include water, air, land, soil, living organisms and others.
4. Endangered species: trading in endangered wildlife and their derivatives and products, or killing or hunting them. "Derivative" and "product" are defined in Article 1 to include what is extracted from wildlife and any part of it.

Note that the first case is limited to water or liquid components that are untreated. The Article itself does not state the penalty; it only identifies the acts, and penalties are set in other Articles of this chapter.

The Article is linked to Article 36, which regulates the work of inspectors in detecting, investigating and proving violations of the Law and the regulations. Because these acts involve industrial facilities, marine carriers and traders, anyone accused of one of them may wish to consult a lawyer who specializes in environmental and criminal matters.