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.

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 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?

The Working Paper focuses on possible impacts of related technologies, such as machine learning and autonomous vehicles, on international relations and society. The authors also examine the ethical and legal aspects of the use of AI technologies. The present Working Paper of the Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC) includes analytical materials prepared by experts in the field of artificial intelligence, machine learning and autonomous system, as well as by lawyers and sociologists. The materials presented here are intended to contribute to the public dialogue on issues of artificial intelligence and the possible consequences of using this technology.

This report summarizes the results of a German-Russian dialogue project, which was implemented and designed by inmedio peace consult gGmbh (Berlin) and the Institute for Law and Public Policy, ILPP (Moscow) and funded by the German Federal Foreign Office under the ‘Expanding Cooperation with Civil Society in the Eastern Partnership Countries and Russia’ Programme. Using a mediative dialogue approach, 20 experts from academia, thinks tanks and NGOs as well as journalists and cultural exchange/dialogue practitioners met near Moscow in September 2018 and in Berlin in November to analyse and reflect on the Russian and Western narratives on what went wrong since the end of the Cold War regarding the deterioration of Russian-Western relations.

quarter of a century has passed since the Constitution of the Russian Federation was adopted in 1993, yet the issue of the results and the prospects for constitutional transformation has not disappeared from the political agenda. For some, the Constitution signifies an ultimate break up with the communist past and a legal foundation for the advancement of the Russian society toward democracy and the rule of law; for the others, it is exactly the Constitution that is the culprit for the authoritarian trend that has prevailed, and for the sustained stagnation in Russia’s economic, social and political development. The author of this chapter is in the middle of these extreme viewpoints. He believes that the Constitution has truly played a pivotal role in Russia’s move toward democracy by establishing the basic principles of civil society and the rule of law, and in this respect, it remains of everlasting and paramount importance. Nevertheless, that does not mean that it should be utterly inaccessible for changes, especially given the elapsed time and the negative experience of the authoritarian transformation of the political regime, the amendments that were introduced between2008 and 2014, and the current objectives of the democratic movement. The rationale for changes is to return to the constitutional principles, reaffirm their initial democratic meaning by rejecting the excessive concentration of the Presidential power, the results of counter-reforms and the adulteration through legislative and regulatory compliance practices. Some of the proposed remedies aim to establish a new form of government (Presidential - Parliamentary), which would necessitate Constitutional amendments — adjustments that would regulate the separation of powers and redistribution of authority. Others seek to transform the system without changing the text of the Constitution through legislative reforms, judicial interpretation and the policy of law. Yet, the third approach prioritizes institutional reforms. Not everything in social development depends on the provisions of the law, political improvisation and practice can prove just as critical. In their cumulative entirety such initiatives can help avoid the two extremes: that of constitutional stagnation gravitating toward the bureaucratic asphyxiation, and that of constitutional populism which has a tendency to destabilize the political system. In its practical activities to transform the political regime, the opposition ought to remember the maximum repeatedly confirmed by experience, — the further a party is from power, the more radical tend to be its constitutional proposals. Conversely, empowered groups tend to be more moderate in their initiatives.

Russia has been experiencing the results of an acute economic crisis since 2012. However, the government has not been explicit in its declarations regarding austerity policies. On the contrary, it tends to represent its measures as "normal" and generally justifies cuts to public expenditure and reduced spending as part of a new understanding of the welfare state and socio-economic relations. Nevertheless, there is a clear connection between the crisis and the introduction of conservative discourse and the "traditional values" concept that targets gender equality both in public and private domains.

The Russian case study is exemplary and didactic. As Russia is new to market economics and has never developed a consistent neoliberal agenda, the shift to conservative ideologies came unexpectedly easily. Gender has become a battleground for the government to fight over social problems and austerity measures. Unlike the EU countries, the Russian government does not hesitate to challenge human rights and gender equality, easily shifting the blame to leftist ideologies – primarily feminism – that are held responsible for family instability and the poor state of demography and health. Using the concept of "traditional values" as a cover for increasing austerity measures, the government relies on short-term strategies. However, this shift to conservative public discourse has not been readily accepted by the Russian population, least of all by women. There is clear resistance from various social groups, including women. This resistance is not just taking the familiar form of public protests (although they have been taking place as well), but rather in the form of withdrawal from public space to minimise dealings with the state, a strategy familiar from the Soviet experience of resistance. Therefore, on the surface, Russian public discourse seems to be dominated by officially promoted ideologies, but this does not mean that society just accepts or even implements those ideologies eagerly.

At the same time, there is a clear tendency to follow supranational austerity measures by cutting public spending, amending social security policies, privatising care, and forcing women to return to the double-burden situation in the Soviet-type social contract by openly attacking feminist ideologies, gender equality, and human rights. In this situation, Russian NGOs, especially those with a human rights and gender-sensitive agenda, need more subtle strategies to deal with public policies, starting at the local government level.

The use of data in society has seen an exponential growth in recent years. Data science, the field of research concerned with understanding and analyzing data, aims to find ways to operationalize data so that it can be beneficially used in society, for example in health applications, urban governance or smart household devices. The legal questions that accompany the rise of new, data-driven technologies however are underexplored. This book is the first volume that seeks to map the legal implications of the emergence of data science. It discusses the possibilities and limitations imposed by the current legal framework, considers whether regulation is needed to respond to problems raised by data science, and which ethical problems occur in relation to the use of data. It also considers the emergence of Data Science and Law as a new legal discipline.

This article is dedicated to one of the most interesting aspects of International Procedure Law – litigation with the participation of foreign persons. Authors focused on a comparative analysis of Russian, Kazakh and Uzbek legislation concerning the regulation of international procedural relations. Article includes two paragraphs: the first one considers international jurisdiction of Russian arbitrazh courts, Kazakh economic courts and Uzbek economic courts on commercial matters; the second one examines the recognition and enforcement of foreign court decisions in commercial matters on the territory of Russia, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. Authors deeply scrutinized a wide range of legal documents including domestic legislation and multilateral international treaties of regional character in order to show the convergences and divergences in Russian, Kazakh and Uzbek procedural law concerning participation of foreign persons in international commercial litigation.

Democratic constitutional order is occasionally threatened by anti-democratic forces, and thus, requires special protection. The concept of militant democracy has been developed to provide adequate defensive mechanisms. In this article, we discuss positive aspects of their application, but also highlight the risks of abusing these defensive mechanisms. Essentially, the problems are associated with narrowing the political space and favouring the dominant political force. Fragile democracies, including Russia, are particularly vulnerable to such exposure. A targeted study of Russian legislation and the caselaw of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation has allowed us to identify the prerequisites for effective implementation of the doctrine of self-defence in line with the principles of constitutionalism.

‘The General Part of Private Law: Historical Roots – Efficiency in the 21st Century’ is the collected papers published as the 12th volume in the series ‘Writings on the development of the system of private law’ edited by Christian Baldus und Christian Pohl. It is a follow-up to ‘Der allgemeine Teil des Privatrechts: Erfahrungen und Perspektiven zwischen Deutschland, Polen und den lusitanischen Rechten’ Peter Lang GmBH, 2013 – 556 S. The collected papers result from two conferences and two research seminars held in Poznań and Heidelberg in 2010–2016 in order to investigate the efficiency of the general part of private (civil) law for lawmaking, legal scholarship, education, and, to lesser extent, judicial decision-making in the historical and comparative perspective.

Many European and even some Russian academics consider Russian legal history to be a series of ruptures. There is some truth to this, and yet the law in east of Eastern Europe is not devoid of continuities which link it with European legal trajectories. This paper examines the pattern of the codification of civil law as one of those links.

Russian experience with drafting civil codes goes back to the ‘age of codifications’ and culminates with the ‘normal’ draft Civil Code of the Russian Empire of 1882–1913. After the Bolshevik revolution of 1917, Soviet civil legislation claimed to break away from all continuity with the bourgeois legacy, domestic and foreign. However, even the codification of ‘real socialism’ in the early 1960s reveals notable similarities with the ‘bourgeois’ legal experience. The theoretical concept of the Civil Code of 1964 overlapped with the modern notion of the code during the ‘age of codification’. This similarity was backed up by the positivistic legal scholarship that conceptualized Soviet law as a hierarchical and gapless system of binding norms. 

This part of the Soviet legal legacy still marks the Russian Civil Code of 1994-2006. Hence, the formalistic pattern of codification remains one of the Soviet relics in contemporary Russian legal style and allows a comparison with other civil law jurisdictions in Europe.

The relevance of the study is due to the problem of the alienation of criminal procedural regulation from the social and legal realities that determine the specifics of the realization of the right to defense of a minor who is being prosecuted. The right to defense, as the norm and principle and legal priority for the defense, permeates all criminal proceedings. In this regard, this article is aimed at determining the content of the right to defense of a minor suspect or accused, identifying some significant shortcomings of criminal procedural regulation from the standpoint of their elimination and proposing corrective measures of normative nature. The leading approach to the study of this problem is the analysis of scientific, legal and empirical materials that make it possible to comprehensively consider the normative and law enforcement potential of criminal procedural legislation in terms of comprehensive, full regulation of the right to defense of minors in criminal proceedings. The article contains the author's definitions of the right to defense, describes the procedural model for the protection of minor suspects and accused, reveals the main procedural differences in the provision and implementation of the right to the defense of minors; defines the procedure for clarifying the rights of minors granted by law, justifies the purpose of the criminal proceedings against minors. The materials of the article are of practical value for the establishment and application of the norms of the criminal procedural legislation in the protection of the rights and legitimate interests of criminally prosecuted persons of a minor age, regardless of their status. The present paper is part of the dissertation research devoted to the substantiation of new, socially-oriented provisions and the corresponding practical recommendations for improving the effectiveness of the Russian criminal procedure law for persons aged 14 to 18 as the most vulnerable category of suspects and accused in criminal cases to ensure their right to defense. The obtained results represent new theoretical and practical provisions describing the main distinctive features of the right to defend a minor suspect or accused in the criminal procedure of the Russian Federation.

This article is dedicated to one of the most interesting aspects of International Procedure Law – litigation with the participation of foreign persons. Authors focused on a comparative analysis of Russian, Kazakh and Uzbek legislation concerning the regulation of international procedural relations. Article includes two paragraphs: the first one considers international jurisdiction of Russian arbitrazh courts, Kazakh economic courts and Uzbek economic courts on commercial matters; the second one examines the recognition and enforcement of foreign court decisions in commercial matters on the territory of Russia, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. Authors deeply scrutinized a wide range of legal documents including domestic legislation and multilateral international treaties of regional character in order to show the convergences and divergences in Russian, Kazakh and Uzbek procedural law concerning participation of foreign persons in international commercial litigation.

This article considers the problems and obstacles associated with international recognition of the Artist's Resale Right. After examining economic, legal and social aspects of that right together with the current legal situation within the main countries that have so far rejected it, the authors conclude that there is no significant barrier to introducing it throughout the world.

The article is devoted to the consideration of the concept of commorientes in French and Russian inheritance law. The commorientes are individuals, entitled to inherit, reciprocally, to each other and considered to have died at the same moment, from the inheritance’s point of view. The commorientes do not inherit reciprocally. The work focuses on how French and Russian law determine the notion of commorientes. Inheritance rules, regarding the commorientes in France and Russian Federation from the beginning of the 19th century are analysed; subsequently, their current versions in force in the French Civil Code and the Russian Federation Civil Code are compared. Particular attention is paid to the issue of the time of the inheritance opening. In the Russian legislation this issue has not been unambiguously resolved for a long time. The article presents the evolution of the Russian and French rules on inheritance after the commorientes. In French law, presumptions of survival have been in effect for many years, allowing to determine the sequence of deaths of people who died as a result of the same event. The article contains the rules of the current legislation in France and in the Russian Federation, as well as suggestions for their improvement.

In various world regions, human rights defenders (HRDs) often become targets for smear campaigns that seek to discredit and marginalize them. Russia’s “foreign agent” law, which brands NGOs as “foreign agents”—a phrase that carries Soviet-era connotations of spies or traitors—is just one example of states’ attempts to cultivate an unfavorable image of rights defenders in society. Yet, despite the global context of such stigmatizing campaigns and their potential to put defenders at further risk, there is little systematic knowledge on public perception of rights defenders and the effects of smear campaigns on social attitudes toward them. This article seeks to address this gap and explores attitudes toward HRDs and human rights organizations in Russia. Drawing on representative public opinion data sets from 2015 and 2016, it demonstrates that the respondents largely lack familiarity with actors in the human rights field.

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.  

The Bayer/Monsanto merger forms part of the recent wave of mega-mergers that has transformed the structure of the factors of production segments of the global food value chain in recent decades. If it is approved, it will lead to the creation of a tight oligopoly of three multinationals that will control almost 2/3 of the global production in seeds and agro-chems, as well as the valuable Big Data and IT platforms that are crucial for “smart farming”. This high level of concentration will undoubtedly lead to price rises for seeds and pesticides, the increase of the technological and economic dependence of farmers on a few global integrated one-stop shop platforms, the reduction of independent centres of innovation activity in the industry and consequently of innovation, due to reduced competition. More importantly, this merger is about control of the global food value chains as well as of the direction of the innovative effort in this industry in the next few decades. Recent technological advances enable us to envision a future away from the agro-chem model of agricultural production, with the adoption of a production model that is respectful of the environment and biodiversity, and also providing smallholders more opportunities to increase their revenue and the independence to invest in innovative ways of farming. By ensuring that the global food value chain remains tightly controlled by three mega-corporations (and their integrated platforms), the recent merger wave in this industry will lead to entrench the market power of the dominant players for the decades to come and to freeze the innovative effort to R&D that is compatible with the business model of the incumbents.

The law is a difficult social phenomenon determining the social life and even the international interaction of subjects. There is no uniform direction of its functioning, but it is possible to determine various parallel aspects that describe legal development. National tendencies of legal regulation predetermine the whole functioning of a legal system, which is a broad concept including not only positive regulation. This paper analyses the following tendencies: expansion of legal regulation; forms of legal regulation; institutionalization; execution of legal requirements; technical progress.