The Law and Policy of New Eurasian Regionalization: Economic Integration, Trade, and Investment in the Post-Soviet and Greater Eurasian Space makes several unique contributions to the literature. First and foremost, most of the current literature is in either economics or politics, with only a secondary focus on legal and institutional matters. Secondly, and consequently, the book is accessible and relevant to readers both ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ the boundaries of the Eurasian area: not only geographical boundaries, but also legal, geopolitical, geoeconomic, cultural, and, indeed, disciplinary boundaries. Drawing on international, transnational, and comparative legal scholarship, this rich volume offers the insights by a plethora of leading international scholars in economics, institutional theory, area studies, international relations, global political economy, political science, and sociology. The contributors come from four corners of the globe, including Asia, Europe, and North America.

This book presents the very first, interdisciplinarily grounded, comprehensive appraisal of a future “Common European Law on Investment Screening”. Thereby, it provides a foundation for a European administrative law framework for investment screening by setting out viable solutions and evaluating their pros and cons.

Daimler, the harbour terminal in Zeebrugge, or Saxo Bank are only three recent examples of controversially discussed company takeovers in Europe. The “elephant in the room” is China and its “Belt and Road Initiative”. The political will in Europe is growing to more actively control investments flowing into the EU. The current regulatory initiatives raise several fundamental, constitutional and regulatory issues. Surprisingly, they have not been addressed in any depth so far. The book takes stock of the current rather fragmented regulatory approaches and combines contributions from leading international academics, practitioners, and policy makers in their respective fields. Due to the volume’s comprehensive approach, it is expected to influence the broader debate on the EU’s upcoming regulation of this matter.

The book is addressed to participants from academia as well as to representatives from government, business, and civil society.

Working Title: From Corporate Social Responsibility to Corporate Social Liability

Subtitle: A Socio-Legal Study of Corporate Liability in Global Value Chains

Series: N/A 

 

The emergence and use of advanced technologies in today’s commerce has gradually grown into habitual practice, and the introduction of more modern weapons including UAVs to military operations is hardly a new challenge in the history of armed conflicts. The interim research results concerning attitudes to drone usage have highlighted a number of contradictions in national and international law and policies and revealed a certain inconsistency in the respondents’ attitudes partially caused by the different width of Overton windows devoted to drone expansion in the two countries, as well as by the use of the socio-cognitive tools currently changing the national attitudes and value systems as part of the national mentalities. The research has highlighted a number of contradictions that proved to be more profession-specific, age and gender-specific.

This fifty-eighth volume of the Annotated Leading Cases of International Criminal Tribunals contains decisions taken by the ICTR in the years 2013-2014. It provides the reader with the full text of the most important decisions, identical to the original version and including concurring, separate and dissenting opinions. Distinguished experts in the field of international criminal law have commented on these decisions.

The book is the result of an extensive research conducted by professors of five academic institutions from Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa - the BRICS countries. The purpose of this work is to analyze the anti-corruption and anti-money laundering legislation in each of these countries, showing the similarities and differencies in terms of domestic legal frames and the international guidelines.

This book covers the challenges posed by digitalisation of labour markets in different countries of the world (a number of EU counties, Russia, Belarus, India, Arab countries and China). The authors address such aspects of digitalisation as: (1) the impact of new technologies in the labour market; (2) the impact of new technologies in the employees’ private life; and (3) the impact of new technologies on the labour process. 

The book contains 19 national reports and a comparative legal analysis of the legal regulations on the procedure of genome editing on the human germline. It is worked out which shared values ​​the different legal systems connect and which differences exist. On this basis, it is examined whether an international regulation of the topic is possible and how it could be designed. In addition, it will be examined to what extent the regulations of other countries can serve as a model for German legislation.

The proposed ‘Overview’ is a practical tool that should simplify the use of existing standards and guidelines for designing, implementing and evaluating anti-corruption compliance programmes. The Overview considers the principles, standards and recommendations from major international organizations and bodies, including UNODC, World Bank, OECD, ICC, ISO.

Besides of standards and guidelines on anti-corruption compliance, relevant provisions from the Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF’s) anti-money laundering/countering financing of terrorism standards and guidelines on identification of third parties, beneficial owners, politically exposed persons (PEPs), risk assessment, and suspicious transactions were taken into account.

The digital economy is gradually gaining traction through a variety of recent technological developments, including the introduction of the Internet of things, artificial intelligence and markets for data. This innovative book contains contributions from leading competition law scholars who map out and investigate the anti-competitive effects that are developing in the digital economy.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the world's largest regional security organisation, possesses most of the attributes traditionally ascribed to an international organisation, but lacks a constitutive treaty and an established international legal personality. Moreover, OSCE decisions are considered mere political commitments and thus not legally binding. As such, it seems to correspond to the general zeitgeist, in which new, less formal actors and forms of international cooperation gain prominence, while traditional actors and instruments of international law are in stagnation. However, an increasing number of voices - including the OSCE participating states - have been advocating for more formal and autonomous OSCE institutional structures, for international legal personality, or even for the adoption of a constitutive treaty. The book analyses why and how these demands have emerged, critically analyses the reform proposals and provides new arguments for revisiting the OSCE legal framework.

The monograph will cover topics on Internet governance and human rights in international law, evolution of the national human rights law in context of the information society and development of the Internet, the right of access to information as a fundamental constitutional right in information society, E-government as a guarantee of the constitutional rights and freedoms, and international experience of Internet use in implementation of constitutional rights. Special part will consider issues of realization of specific constitutional rights and freedoms.

In this monograph, readers will understand the regulatory framework of the Internet, be able to find legal problems in the implementation of constitutional rights and freedoms on the Internet, and learn how to use online sources to justify its position on the issue under consideration.

Over the past decade, rapid integration of new computer systems and information technology takes place both in the State's and public authorities' activities, and in various social spheres. As of today, development and implementation of high technology and informatization process in various areas of social activities lead to drastic increase in the living standards of population. The healthcare sector is not an exception in this regard. Due to this, application of high technologies in medical activity including provision of medical care using telemedicine becomes particularly apparent. It is worth noting that European countries have a wealth of experience in using telemedicine, while Russia is still at the initial stage of creation and implementation of such information technologies in healthcare. Russian laws and regulations governing organization of telemedicine are still at the phase of discussion and approval. The purpose of this article is to consider problematic issues related to legal regulation of telemedicine both in foreign countries and in Russia, as well as to conclude whether solutions applied abroad to overcome legal gaps in telemedicine can be applied in Russia.

As a tribute to their academic teacher and to further his interests, the students of Prof. Dr. Laurent Waelkens collected fifteen scholarly contributions on ius commune graeco-romanum, written by academics from eleven different countries, mainly but not exclusively from Eastern Europe. The book consists of three main parts. In the first part, four authors focus on the Graeco-Roman law in the Roman Empire itself. In the second part, five contributions concern the influence of Graeco-Roman law outside of the Byzantine Empire. The six contributions of the third and final part study the impact of the Western ius commune tradition on Eastern European countries. Thus, the volume highlights the continued importance of the study of Roman law for the understanding of our common pan-European legal heritage.

The book analyses the position of the ECtHR which has been more and more confronted with criticism coming from the national sphere, including the judiciary. This culminated in constitutional court judgments declaring a particular ECtHR judgment non-executable, for reasons of constitutional law. Existing scholarship does not differentiate enough between cases of mere political unwillingness to execute an ECtHR judgment and cases where execution is blocked for legal reasons (mainly of constitutional law nature). At the same time, the discussion under EU law on national/constitutional identity limiting the reach of the former has been only loosely linked with the ECHR context. This book presents a new dogmatic concept  - 'principled resistance' - to analyse such cases. Taking up examples from the national level, it strives to find out whether the legal reasoning behind 'principled resistance' shows enough commonalities in order to qualify such incidents as expression of a 'new paradigm'.

This book is the result of the 5th edition of the Seminar on International and Comparative Labour Law, organized, under my direction, by Ca’ Foscari University of Venice and the International Society for Labour and Social Security Law in Venice (7-11 May 2018). The Seminar was entirely dedicated to the topic “The Role of the State and Industrial Relations” and during the Young Scholars Session organized at the conclusion of the Seminar, chaired by Prof. Stefano Bellomo, several young Phd Students and Research Fellows, which actively participated to the call for paper launched by the ISLSSL, came from all over the world to discuss about the industrial relations system and about the role of the State, adopting different perspectives: national, European and supranational.

A number of recent events in the last decade have renewed interest in Russian discourses on international law. This book evaluates and presents a contemporary analysis of Russian discourses on international law from various perspectives, including sociological, theoretical, political and philosophical. The aim is to identify how Russian interacts with international law, the reasons behind such interactions, and how such interactions compare with the general practice of international law. It also examines whether legal culture and other phenomena can justify Russia's interaction in international law. Russian Discourses on International Law explains Russia's interpretation of international law thrugh the lens of both leading western scholars and contemporary western-based Russian scholars. It will be of value to international law scholars looking for a better understanding of Russia's behaviour in international legal relations, law and society, foreign policy, and domestic application of international law. Further, those in fields such as sociology, politics, pholosophy, or general graduate students, lawyers, think tanks, government departments, and specialised Russian studies programmes will find this book helpful.

Liberalism in Russia is one of the most complex, multifaced and, indeed, controversial phenomena in the history of political thought. Values and practices traditionally associated with Western liberalism—such as individual freedom, property rights, or the rule of law—have often emerged ambiguously in the Russian historical experience through different dimensions and combinations. Economic and political liberalism have often appeared disjointed, and liberal projects have been shaped by local circumstances, evolved in response to secular challenges and developed within often rapidly-changing institutional and international settings. This third volume of the Reset DOC “Russia Workshop” collects a selection of the Dimensions and Challenges of Russian Liberalism conference proceedings, providing a broad set of insights into the Russian liberal experience through a dialogue between past and present, and intellectual and empirical contextualization, involving historians, jurists, political scientists and theorists. The first part focuses on the Imperial period, analyzing the political philosophy and peculiarities of pre-revolutionary Russian liberalism, its relations with the rule of law (Pravovoe Gosudarstvo), and its institutionalization within the Constitutional Democratic Party (Kadets). The second part focuses on Soviet times, when liberal undercurrents emerged under the surface of the official Marxist-Leninist ideology. After Stalin’s death, the “thaw intelligentsia” of Soviet dissidents and human rights defenders represented a new liberal dimension in late Soviet history, while the reforms of Gorbachev’s “New Thinking” became a substitute for liberalism in the final decade of the USSR.  The third part focuses on the “time of troubles” under the Yeltsin presidency, and assesses the impact of liberal values and ethics, the bureaucratic difficulties in adapting to change, and the paradoxes of liberal reforms during the transition to post-Soviet Russia. Despite Russian liberals having begun to draw lessons from previous failures, their project was severely challenged by the rise of Vladimir Putin. Hence, the fourth part focuses on the 2000s, when the liberal alternative in Russian politics confronted the ascendance of Putin, surviving in parts of Russian culture and in the mindset of technocrats and “system liberals”. Today, however, the Russian liberal project faces the limits of reform cycles of public administration, suffers from a lack of federalist attitude in politics and is externally challenged from an illiberal world order. All this asks us to consider: what is the likelihood of a “reboot” of Russian liberalism?

This article discusses constitutional (statutory) electronic justice in the constituent entities of the Russian Federation as a method of organizing judicial activity based on information technologies, which aims to ensure the operation, mainly, of the principles of publicity and openness, transparency, and accessibility of information from constitutional (statutory) legal procedures as a variety of the latter in the Russian Federation. In the methodological of use the technique of documentary observation. Indeed, electronic (statutory)constitutional justice in the constituent entities of the Russian Federation has a multifaceted nature and characteristic, as it can be considered in several contexts, including the attribution to the group of additional constitutional guarantees of human and civil rights. It is concluded that electronic constitutional justice brings spaces of justice closer to individuals and communities, making it easier to exercise their rights and duties.

The paper confirms a conclusion that there is no unified approach to the issue of civil liability for the actions of artificial intelligence. The authors propose to consider fault-based liability, liability regardless of fault and liability founded on a risk-based approach. To determine a type of liability for the actions of AI, the authors outline a classification of AI technologies on four grounds: autonomy, self-learning, feature and availability of data recorders. According to the authors, the most promising approach to the legal regulation of liability for the functioning of artificial intelligence technologies is a risk-based approach. The conclusions presented in the paper testify to the relevance of the topic of the research and prove the beginning of the formation of a scientific understanding of civil liability for the actions of AI in Russia and abroad.

This study describes and analyses the recently adopted foreign investment law (i.e., the Law). This paper presents reasons for the adoption of the Law. For example, this study focuses on the trade war between the United States and China, which has greatly affected the adoption of the Law. The political background that influenced the adoption of the law is revealed. Of note, legal techniques used by the Chinese legislators in the Law are evaluated. For example, a list system for investment sectors is used, which divides all industries into categories with a special regime. This system divides all industries into four categories: (1) encouraged, (2) permitted, (3) restricted, and (4) prohibited. In conclusion, this study emphasizes that changes achieved by the Law are not revolutionary. Some of the consequences that the adoption of the law entails is analyzed. Thus, the Law represents a gradual evolution in how foreign investors access the Chinese economy.

The purpose of this study is to conduct a comprehensive analysis of the legislation regulating social relations that develop in the process of forming a jury panel when considering criminal cases by a court with the participation of jurors. The relevance of the research topic is determined by the expansion of the competence of jurors from June 1, 2018. Currently, one of the main reasons for the cancellation of court verdicts rendered with the participation of a jury is violations committed during the formation of a jury panel (Avdeeva, Aksenov, 2019: 13-18). In this regard, the authors highlight the main procedural and organizational shortcomings of this process and formulate relevant proposals: a) to improve the legislation regulating the procedure for forming a jury; b) drawing up General and reserve lists based on information included in the Unified Federal information register; c) video recording of the process [screen broadcasting] of a random sample of citizens from the General and reserve lists by a court staff member when forming a preliminary list of jurors; d) on the establishment of the right of citizens to delay the obligation to appear in court as a candidate for jurors at a later date; e) on the application of new forms of sending invitations to appear in court for potential jurors.

“Regulatory sandboxes” are regarded as a special mechanism for setting up experimental regulation in the area of digital innovation (especially in financial technologies), creating a special regime for a limited number of participants and for a limited time.Russiahas its own method of experimental regulation, which is not typical but may be helpful for other jurisdictions. There are three approaches to legal experiments (including digital innovations) inRussia. The first approach is accepting special regulation on different issues. There are recent examples of special laws (e.g. Federal Law on the experiment with artificial intelligence technologies inMoscow). An alternative to this option is establishing experimental regulation by an act of the Government if legislation does not prohibit it (e.g. labeling with means of identification). The second approach deals only with Fintech innovations and provides a special mechanism to pilot models of innovative financial technologies. The participants of such a “sandbox” may create a close-to-life model in order to estimate the effects and risks. If the model works fine, the regulation may be amended. The third approach works with creating a universal mechanism of real-life experiments in the sphere of digital innovations based on the special Federal Law and the specific decision of the Government of theRussian Federationor the Bank of Russia in the financial sphere. The author compares the three approaches and their implementation within the framework of Russian legislation and practice and concludes that this experience may be used by developing countries with inflexible regulation, in order to facilitate the development of digital innovations.

Reconsideration of legal phenomena by legal language means is a typical feature of analytical tradition in the legal philosophy, since legal regulations are expressed not only in language, but are inextricably linked with the linguistic content of rules whilst applying them. Language as a form of communication and representation of the world is a holistic and specific phenomenon, that is localized in speech acts that form subject’s intentions and his further actions. It is necessary to count the meaningful use of signs for the reality perception, that form the language. Legal reality and its language forms are inseparable, and thus, we can learn more deeply the essence of legal phenomena by interpreting legal texts and speech acts that illustrate legal intentions and actions. So in the speech acts theory of J.L. Austin introduces the category of commissives, denoting the obligations declared by the intentions of the person (promise, agree, intend, plan, provide, allow, swear, etc.). In legal language speech acts are used with the purposes of execution, prohibition, coercion for maintenance of a social order, therefore legal discourse has performative character. Performative expressions in legal language are characterized by speech stereotypes due to repetitive procedures (for example, procedural actions in criminal proceedings or court hearings). If it is a question of acts of application of the right, from the point of view of their performative form they have declarative character, that is contain instructions and obligations of legal character. The illocutionary function of these proposals is to form a respectful attitude to the established norms, and the perlocutive force is to impose compliance with these norms. The question of the relation of speech acts and actions in a different context was considered by Gilbert Ryle. Ryle’s key thesis is that the workings of consciousness should not be described as a complex of some point operations, but rather should be Speech acts and actions in legal language: conceptual analysis understood in the context of observed human behavior. Consciousness is determined by the actions of the subject, not by the construction of metaphysical entities. As a man thinks, so he acts. If the researcher inspects the scene of the accident, the notary certifies the authenticity of the documents drawn up, and the judge gives arguments for the adoption of a legitimate judicial decision, they do not need the whole set of causality relationships in nature, or an explanation that human behavior is completely determined, that he is not free, because he can not control the mental processes in consciousness. H.L.A. Hart defines the essence of legal statements and their ascription of attributing legal value of a particular performative speech acts. The arguments on the specific features of legal statements in the context of the existing concepts of J.L. Austin, J. Searle, H. Hart and their critics.

This Article seeks to examine the idea of ‘protection’ which was developed in 19th century positivist legal thought in the attempt to expand the imperial interests of European nations during the colonial period. In particular, this Article unfolds how the notion of protectorate was subtly implemented by British rule with the aim to subjugate the Kingdom of Kandy in Sri Lanka in 1815. The British Empire took advantage of the internal disputes existing between the Sinhalese Kandyan aristocrats and the King (originally from South India) for imperial reasons.

COVID -19 pandemic has changed the functioning of all levels of education systems. Schools and universities had to  quickly adapt and change their procedures according to conditions created by the epidemic. Long perceived as additional and backup solutions, diff erent distance learning technologies, particularly internet-based, became the main solution for the continuation of education on all levels. Several issues have stood out particularly with this seismic change – one of those is the issue of fi nal examinations in universities. This issue is especially crucial in Russia, where the successful passing of a state final examination, which combines majority of the topics from the study program, is a prerequisite for graduation. This paper aims to analyze and present diff erent strategies which were used for fi nal university examinations in diff erent countries and universities of the world and compare it with the Russian practices.

Internet technology makes digital value transactions between anonymous individuals possible, but leaves unanswered the question of how to resolve disputes between unidentified parties. Blockchain dispute resolution platforms provide a response to this problem. In the social dispute resolution systems for blockchain currently in use, pseudo anonymous jurors can resolve disputes between pseudo anonymous parties. This paper presents Kleros as the most illustrative blockchain dispute resolution platform BDRP. To describe the features of the Kleros dispute resolution platform and the qualification of jurors, this research employs an online dispute resolution survey of both the jurors and stakeholders of the Kleros platform. This study raises important questions about key elements of procedural justice in resolution platforms for blockchain disputes. The research underlines the pros and cons of dispute resolution for crowdsourced blockchain and contributes to the further development of online dispute resolution systems. It tests the wisdom of the crowd as the core attribute of the resolution process in crowdsource disputes. Crowdsource mass dispute resolution, coupled with cooperative jurors and blockchain technology, could ensure greater effectiveness and fairness of the dispute resolution process, especially the adjudication of online small claims disputes.

Globalisation has provoked a deep transformation in international law, political affairs and governance with contradictory consequences. It has stimulated the cosmopolitan project of global constitutionalism, transnational integration and the unification of democratic standards. However, it also resulted in the fragmentation of international affairs, the deterioration of constitutional democracy and a feeling of a growing shortage in democracy on national and international levels of governance. The international debate on global legal stability therefore cannot ignore the problem of constitutional transformation. The most simple solution to the dilemma consists in the polarised opposition of two trends in the development of the international legal order, namely, integration (in the form of the constitutionalisation of international law) and its fragmentation (in form of the separation of different global constitutional regions, supra-national actors or regimes). According this view, the two rival trends cannot be coordinated and a sharp collision cannot be avoided. The result could be described as a “zero-sum game”, as progress in integration means an equal regress in fragmentation and vice versa. This approach is therefore useful as a methodological presumption grounded on the very abstract, linear and teleological vision of globalisation considering its development from a black and white perspective and associating it strictly with positive results—progress in human rights protection, the supremacy of law and law-based states. The current global pandemic, however, reveals the other side of globalisation—economic recession, legal contradictions, the prevalence of egoistic motives, and the perceived interests of separate regions and national states over general international values or a different interpretation of its content and “common” character. That simple fact makes it important to reconsider the complex character of legal globalisation and the reciprocal relations between its opposite sides—constitutionalisation and the fragmentation of international constitutionalism. Trying to balance the impact of these two opposing trends, the author analyses the positive and negative effects of globalisation on constitutional development regarding such issues as transnational constitutionalisation, democracy and national sovereignty, the changing place of multilayer constitutionalism, the international separation of powers, and the system of global governance in the establishment of transnational constitutional democratic legitimacy. From this point of view, the populist backslide in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) looks dangerous and unforeseen, but it is a systemic and potentially predictable reaction of global regions on the uneven character of integration, the lack of democratic legitimacy and a new answer to the contortions and dysfunctions of global governance. An adequate response to these challenges could be found in a new concept of constitutional integration based on ongoing dialogue between the transnational and national actors of legal globalisation. This dialogue is possible by using a conflict-mediation strategy, elaborated by international experts, especially, for the deliberation of complex and protracted conflicts, which have no clear practical solutions in the short to medium term.

This paper revisits the traditional trade-off between privacy and security, which underpins the compatibility of general and indiscriminate mass surveillance with international human rights instruments, and extends the orthodox patterns of legal argumentation using interdisciplinary knowledge, which is able to nurture, and to be translated into, the language of International Human Rights Law. In search of new resources and a second wind for the overburdened legal concept of privacy, this research combines a positivistic legal perspective with knowledge from sociologically framed surveillance studies, political theory, behavioral economics, and computer science, and deals with the threats and responses thereto from this epistemological standpoint. The first of three threats singled out in the paper—the ‘securitization’ of the danger of terrorism—is treated through embedding the effectiveness of predictive algorithms to the proportionality test. A consensus of ‘Big Brothers’ to use mass surveillance tools as the second threat is considered using constitutional theory and the bridge of the ‘democratic society’ component included in some international human rights instruments to transpose issues of fair representation to the standard of review. The third threat is the shift of social norms towards the permissibility of being watched. Resources to cope with this challenge can be found in the complementation of an individual reading of privacy as a right and a value by a collective one, which follows a primarily socio-economic trend to consider privacy as a public good.

This paper contributes to the understanding of why states resort to ‘good old’ sanctions to meet the relatively new threat of cyber intrusions and whether this type of response is a forced measure or an effective tool to halt, prevent and punish attacking states. The tools of analysis used in this paper are legal positivism, and political and economic theories, including Mancur Olson’s theory of groups, Francesco Giumelli’s analytical framework for sanction assessment, cost-benefit analysis and game theory. The authors address the effectiveness of sanctions as a reaction to cyber-enabled activities through the lens of regulation introduced in the US and the EU, which are the most developed counter-cyber sanction regimes, analyzing publicly known cases of cyber-related sanctions.

The article provides an overview of the Islamic finance market in Russia. It accumulated data on 30+ Islamic finance institutions and products launched between 2010 and 2019, including discontinued ones. The range includes banks, non-banking microfinance institutions, mutual investment funds, housing cooperatives, investment companies and others. The article provides the author’s assessment of the market size and its dynamics between 2011 and 2019. It analyzes the range of Islamic finance products rendered by the market players, including the industry break down of certain Islamic finance companies. The article summarizes the results of the survey, conducted among the owners and managers of the Islamic finance institutions. It shows the range of opinions regarding the lack of market special regulation and elicits factors influencing the market and impeding its development. The main legal and tax hurdles for the Islamic finance market, in Russia, are analyzed. The results show that the market is still not mature and lacks internal competition. The geographical reach of Islamic financial services is limited. Despite the lack of Islamic banking law, the market size is comparable to that of Kazakhstan. The lack of market regulation is a negative side that holds back the potential newcomers and clients, and, on the contrary, the relative market freedom allows the existing companies to experiment and make use of the emerging niche segment. There is an acute necessity of a tax-friendly regime for murabaha financing and mudaraba-based investment accounts, and a level playing field concerning the mechanisms of state subsidies. Among potential solutions that could contribute to the market development is the creation of a self-regulatory organization that could establish internal standards, develop liquidity management tools and create a proper mediation of arbitrage system, as well as organize takaful funds. Based on the analysis, the author makes a forecast for further market development.

This paper examines one of the most important concepts of intestate succession – inheritance by right of representation. The following analysis is based on civil law in Russia and France. The paper provides an overview of the meaning and the role of the right of representation, determines those who can inherit by right of representation under the Russian and French civil codes as well as the grounds for succession; examines the limitations on inheritance by right of representation under civil law in both states; identifies the legal nature of the rights of the representing heirs. Specific attention is paid to the issue of representation of the parent who is the commorient of the decedent. As a result of the comparative study, the author makes proposals on the improvement of the concept of inheritance by right of representation in Russia and France.

This study investigates the involvement of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in the development of the common foreign and security policy (CFSP) after the Treaty of Lisbon. The preliminary results reveal that the competence of the CJEU in CFSP is limited because EU member states (MS) avoid extending the principle of direct effect and other acquis of the CJEU in this field. On the basis of the integration through law concept it has been demonstrated that the CJEU (in the realm of rulings as provided by the Treaties) can rule in a way that would almost certainly have an impact on how CFSP is being implemented. This paper provides a reconstruction of the case law in the field and the prospects for integration through legal development.

This article investigates issues related to a unique experiment carried out in Russia in unifying the collection of all obligatory payments. It analyzes the legal aspects of this approach and presents the variety of methods for collecting such payments. Notions of budget revenue and sources of revenue are considered. Special attention is paid to the forms and practices of tax farming and other obligatory payments. The article concludes that the budget legislation actually specifies various fiscal charges as sources of budget revenue. The real source of public revenue are the assets and resources making up the national wealth. Historical examples show that despite the generally accepted denial, tax farming is a normal method and can be applied along with the state monopoly and tax administration. The cases when tax farming is transformed into a state monopoly or excise and vice versa are not rare. Tax farming, which has continued to this day, is also referred to as parafiscal charges or quasi taxes.

This article concentrates on two recent judgments issued by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) Chambers, on Centrum för Rättvisa v. Sweden and Big Brother Watch and Others v. the United Kingdom, which expressly acknowledged that mass surveillance per se does not violate the Convention on the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. These judgments have been recently referred to the Grand Chamber, thus giving hope that the approach taken in respect of the launch of mass interception of communications and metadata has a chance to be revisited.  The author reveals whether this approach follows from the jurisprudence of the ECHR, how plausible the argumentation of this court is and how legalization for the bulk interception of data relates to the stance taken by the ECJ, which until that time was dealing with questions of the protection of the right to respect for private life and personal data using the general paths initially paved by the ECHR. The article discloses what precise content in terms of the protection of right to respect for private life lies behind the main findings on the compatibility of bulk interception per se with the Convention on the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, namely, in which part this court has refused to examine the measures undertaken by states in compliance with Article 8 and in which parts it has strengthened (or relaxed) already inferred criteria. Finally, taking into account the current position of the ECHR at this crossroads, the article dwells on causes that influenced the decisions of its Chambers.

The paper presents a comparative legal study of compliance regulation in the areas of AML/CFT and anti-corruption. The main question is whether existing expirience of AML/CFT complaince regulation can/should be considered in the anti-corruption field. The author identifies distinctive features of two different approaches to regulation and the challenges arizing from these, and then analyzes the role of international soft law, national laws and regulations, and compliance programmes of multinational companies.

In this article, we attempt to trace the semantic changes two key concepts of the Modern period - fundamental law and constitution underwent at the 18th century and investigates how these European concepts were adapted and used in the Russian political language. The concept of the constitution and fundamental laws in eighteenth-century political discourse had differing connotations: while the constitution was used mainly to describe the form of government, the concept of fundamental laws referred to historically developing legal traditions which have been adopted as norms of political law. The most radical vision of constitution in the 18th century went further than identify it with the fundamental law, demanding that the latter should enshrine the principles of civil rights and liberties of the Nation, and the legal guarantees thereof. However, this radical view, arising at the end of the century, was far from universal, and the discussion around various understandings of this concept was still to continue for many years.  

The human factor is always decisive in social development. The role of active behavior and above all economic behavior is obvious. However, there are some difficulties: the law regulates predominantly "external" behavior; psychology covers interests, motives, will, emotions.   This paper analyzes individuals’ interests and motives in economics. Coherence and contradictions of the labor interests are investigated on the basis of a survey made in several organizations. The rank of interests (economic, professional, career, group, corporate, territorial, and common civil) in the dependence of labor group type (shareholders, top managers, line managers, employees) is formed.  

The study analyses the EU Internal market from a dynamic and a contextual perspective, taking into account, not just the normative changes brought by the intense legislative and judicial activity in this area, but also the important economic and technological transformations that have largely altered the structure of the global economy in the last two to three decades. These could, in my view, challenge the first principles upon which the EU economic integration process and, in particular the “single market” idea, is based. This “updating” of the Internal market project is essential if one is to critically reflect on the role and the specificity of the EU integration process, in the context of the broader globalization movement. The first part of the paper introduces the “neo-functionalist” perspective, which has largely influenced the EU economic integration process, from its incipiency, and explores its theoretical linkages with trade theory (the law of one price), thus presenting the fundamental tenets of positive EU Internal market law. The second part delves into the subsequent mutation of the economic integration ideal towards the more modular and scalar concept of “regulatory convergence”. Opening the black box of economic integration will lead us to analyse its transformation, as a result of a paradigm shift currently occurring in the organization of the global process of economic production, with the development of global value chains, and the important role of technology, in particular the Internet, in promoting economic integration not through law, but through code. The study predicts that addressing more systematically the effect of both private and public obstacles to trade should take centre-stage if one is to opt for a more holistic and dynamic perspective in analysing the process of economic integration. A more extensive intervention of the competition law tool and other regulatory initiatives against private restrictions to trade is therefore to be expected in the future, these areas of law taking a more prevalent part in the EU Internal market law compass. The study discusses in some detail the recent legislative and jurisprudential developments with regard to geo-blocking and geo-filtering practices. The last part of the study provides some concluding thoughts on the need for the EU Internal market concept to be updated and raises some questions with regard to its ontology in the context of a globalized economy.

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The Europeanization of legal scholarship and legal education facilitates the emergence of comparative legal science as a promising new tool to discover similarities and differences between two or more jurisdictions and their past development. Yet, the specific methodology of such studies is still not clear. Some legal historians hold that comparative legal history does not or should not have its own methodology other than that of comparative law. Others warn against imposing a contemporary agenda and toolbox on legal history. The author of this article aims to clarify this debate by examining the prospect of applying one of the most popular methods of comparative law – the functional method – to the domain of legal history. On the basis of several examples from the European legal past he claims that examining the functions (the social purpose) of legal norms can help legal historians in three ways: first, to determine the objects of comparison and the sources of analysis, despite the variety of verbal shortcuts (the initial stage of research); second, to analyse legal norms from the perspective of solving social problems in the past – to study the 'law in action'; and third, to arrange the results of the research according to meaningful criteria at the final stage.

Comparative legal history is a fashionable new discipline which aims at a better understanding of the law's past by comparing similarities and differences of legal phenomena in two or more jurisdictions beyond the limits of national legal histories. Despite its popularity in Europe, it still lacks comparative projects that cover both Western and Eastern areas of the Continent, not least because the methodology of such comparison requires proper consideration and cannot be simply copied from comparative law or national legal histories. The present article evaluates the applicability of the dominant method of today's comparative law (the functional one) in the domain of the general contract law of the first codifications in the major jurisdictions of Continental Europe (Austria, France, Germany, Russia) during the 'long 19th century'. This subject matter is chosen by way of example as a 'legal cross-road' of legal concepts and models, more susceptible to changes, innovations, borrowings, and closely linked to social needs. In the main part of the article, it is argued that the adaptation of the functional method to the needs of comparison in legal history becomes plausible due to at least two factors. First, comparatists mitigated the rigid assumptions of the 'classical' functionalism of the 20th century (rejecting its privileged status and purely functional perception of law, irrebuttable presumptions of similarity and unification of compared legal systems etc.). Second, many legal historians, like the drafters of the first civil codes in Western and Eastern Europe, also believe that law is more than minimally connected to social problems and manifests itself primarily through its actual application. On the basis of such premises, the author of this article discusses potential benefits and limitations of researching general contract law in the selected jurisdictions with the functional method. At the preparatory (descriptive) stage, it can be useful to assure comparability of contract law in the selected civil codes, to identify omissions in the codified general rules on contracts, and to arrange legal provisions around practically relevant issues. At the stage of analysis, functionalism can be coupled with teleological interpretation of legal norms to enable us to understand better the link between the application of the legal rules, their legal purposes, and the practical social problems serving as tertium comparationis for all the compared jurisdictions. A sketch of such an analysis in the final part of the article allows to conclude that a research with the help of the functional method narrows our perception of law as a cultural phenomenon and breaks the inner doctrinal logic, but in return, it offers a starting point for a much needed dialogue of legal historians with a wider legal community.

The Russian Constitutional Court (RCC) has over time developed a practice of adopting so-called “positive dismissals” (Pozitivnoe Opredelenie) which complements (but also undermines) the existent formal procedure of only delivering decisions on merits with Rulings (Postanovlenie). The paper explores the uses of this peculiar practice. I show that Positive Dismissals are used by the Court to overcome the rigidity of the formal procedure where this is necessary for reasons of intraorganizational or political expediency. To do that I construct and analyze quantitatively a unique comprehensive dataset of all decisions handed down by the RCC roughly in the first two decades of its existence (1995-2015, N=22334). I show that “positive dismissals” are used whenever the case is deemed too important to be simply dismissed (for example, if it is submitted by a powerful petitioner), or when the Court cannot dismiss a case but wants to keep low profile to avoid political risks (for example, with the politically salient cases during election years).

In different countries of the world the place of religion in education differs. In most of the European countries teaching of religion in public (or state-funded) school exists in one form or another. In Russia religious education can be received by the student at his or her own discretion or at discretion of the parents in the religious educational establishment. Education in public (state and municipal) organizations engaged in educational activity has a strictly secular nature. This principle is implemented in the Russian legislation and practice is most visible in disputes arising at the crossroad of religion and education as resolved by Russian courts. The most disputed issues concern the regulation of school uniform and the teaching of subjects ‘Fundamentals of Religious cultures and secular ethics’ and ‘Fundamentals of spiritual and moral culture of Russian nations’ as a compulsory subject in public schools. The court practice on the issue keeps developing, but it's analysis shows that the secular nature of education in Russia is not so undoubted as it may seem.