Articles

The article sets the challenge of assessing the regulatory function of taxation in relation to the production of polymers from hydrocarbon raw materials (plastic), as well as based on the study of the impact of plastic on the environment and human health the author seeks to develop tax and legal measures aimed at reducing the production of plastic. Herewith consideration is given to the possibility of producing polymers from alternative sources other than hydrocarbons (bioplastics). Currently, there are tax incentives in the Russian Federation aimed at processing hydrocarbons into plastic. This stimulates the production of plastic. But at the same time, the legislation does not sufficiently take into account the need to protect the natural environment and human health in relation to the widespread use of plastic and its degradation to microplastics. The author comes to the conclusion that it is necessary to introduce excise taxes on a number of plastic products, in particular, on plastic bags. The author’s conclusions are supported by references to international experience in this matter. On the other hand, the production of bioplastics should be exempt from excise taxation. The article also analyzes possible measures of tax incentives for the collection and processing of plastic. The author draws attention to the need to create material incentives for the population in relation to the collection of plastic. Such incentives can also be based on excise taxes and partial exemptions from excise taxes on the production of recycled plastic.

The article examines how in the process of centralization was changed the form of the state unity of Russia. The topic is interesting not only a theoretical understanding of the problem, but also a historical and legal analysis of the existing state unity of Russia. The article traces that the change in the form of the state unity of Russia is associated with the liberation from vassal dependence on the successor of the Golden Horde, the Great Horde. The article substantiates that the creation of a unified Russian state and its centralization differ somewhat in time, although they coincide at the last stages. These changes began to manifest themselves, first of all, in the change in the legal status of the feudal elite, the service class, which was reflected in the status of their land holdings. These changes manifest themselves after the feudal war of the middle of the XV century and are expressed in the strengthening of the central government (the order of succession to the Grand ducal throne changes and the power of the Grand Prince increases), specific land ownership is practically nullified and residential land ownership becomes the main one, the free transfer of boyars and free servants from the Grand Duke to other landowners is prohibited. This contributes to the creation of a consolidated class (social group) of serving people in the fatherland.

Reviewed the monograph by E. A. Frolova “Rational Foundations of Law: Classics and Modernity”. The reviewers come to the conclusion about the relevance of this book and its significance for the development of theoretical-legal and philosophical-legal thought in Russia and note that E. A. Frolova objectively investigated the essence of law from a theoretical standpoint. This approach gave her the opportunity to identify urgent problems of modern legal science and propose ways to resolve them. The review notes the deep study of legal sources, as well as scientific literature of various centuries, carried out in the course of the study.

The article reveals the main ideas and content of the current monographic research on the topic “Changing of Technological Orders and Legal Development of Russia” (Moscow, 2021), in which the author’s concept of legal genesis is presented on an interdisciplinary basis. This concept determines the legal genesis of the defining role of the dominant technology and technological structure of Russian society. Based on the position of the authors of the monograph, the specifics of the emergence, state and dynamics of the development of law, its regularities are largely determined by the technological factor at a particular historical period of time on the path of society’s movement from the traditional to the post-industrial type. Revealing from new methodological positions the fundamental natural connections of technological, economic and legal processes significant for the general theory and history of law at different historical stages, the authors build a certain logic of cyclical, wave development of the history of Russian law, due to the convergence of economic, technological and legal processes proper. An original interpretation of the periodization of the history of Russian law depending on technological structures is given, it is shown that in the evolution of domestic law, changes in its systemic and structural characteristics, a special place should be given to the role of the technological factor and the problem of dialectics of economic, technological and legal convergence.

This research is the fourth in a series of articles devoted to the issues of genetic and legal education. In the first work, the author revealed the measure of freedom of the subject of law determining the mode of data use on the example of genetic information; in the second — the measure of freedom of the subject-addressee of genetic education in the context of its content; in the third — the features of the forms of genetic and legal education in the society of the Industry 4.0 era. The objective of the article is to analyze the work of genetic and legal education executors. The success and effectiveness genetic and legal education directly depends on its executors, who have to have the particular knowledge in respective field. And if this problem is being solved on school education level, then in regards to the remaining multimillion audience there’s still a lot of work that specialists have to do. As a result of this the objectives of this article are to study specific competences of genetic and legal education executors and study the form and means of this education. Authors focus on education factors which influence the competence model of subjects, performing genetic and legal education, composition. They also focus on the skill set and knowledge that the team of these educators should have, meaning special skills of genetic and law education executors are being analyzed. This article views the practical meaning of genetic and law education, its types and corresponding to it methods (official and unofficial education) are being analyzed. Authors conclude that it is necessary to conceptualize genetic legal education, and therefore provide relevant recommendations for science and practice pointing out the necessity to combine official and unofficial forms of education and work over the question of introduction of “genetic ombudsman”. In the course of this study, logical, comparative-legal and formal-legal methods were used.

The article examines the possibility of prosecution for the crime of aggression committed through cyber-attacks (cyberaggression) under international criminal law. The author analyzes the material elements of the crime, examines the most extensive cyberattacks in the last 15 years and concludes that such requirements of the art. 8bis as commitment of the act of aggression only by State and the threshold requirement for the act of aggression to reach the level of manifest violation of the Charter of the United Nations, as well as the lack of indication on the opened or closed list of acts of aggression in art. 8bis, makes its application to cyberaggression difficult. The Rome Statute’s provisions on the subject of the crime of aggression which limit both primary perpetrators and accomplices to those who are in position effectively to exercise control over or to direct the action of a State, prevent cybercrime perpetrators from being held liable for the crime of aggression. Similar difficulties arise when applying the mental element requirements of the crime of aggression to possible cases of cyberaggression, such as intent and knowledge to commit crime of aggression. At the same time the author recognizes the possibility and even the need to extend the definition of aggression to cases of committing this crime through cyberattacks.

The legal problems associated with Austria’s permanent neutrality are discussed in both Austrian and Russian international law literature controversially. Already the establishment of the Austrian neutrality in 1955 raises some legal questions. This article addresses — after an introduction to permanent neutrality as an institute of international law — the question of whether the Austrian neutrality is anchored in international law and, if so, on what legal basis that anchoring is based. By means of a comparative presentation of the Austrian and Soviet/Russian international law doctrine, an attempt is made to work out which of these various legal opinions appears justifiable from the view of the international law of neutrality. It will be shown that the obligations arising from Austria’s status of permanent neutrality go beyond those that are explicitly mentioned in the federal constitutional law on neutrality (Neutrality Act). Furthermore, it is presented that there are convincing reasons to argue for an anchoring of the Austrian neutrality in international treaty law in the Moscow Memorandum (April 1955) as well as in the State Treaty of Vienna (May 1955) and that the notification of the Neutrality Act provides another opportunity for a legal basis in international law. Furthermore, an attempt is made to show why the legal opinion which assumes that the Austrian neutrality is merely anchored in the Neutrality Act, and thus only on national law ground, has to be rejected.

The key question of this article is whether legal claims and legal privileges (in Hohfeldian sense) are to be regarded as self-sufficient entities of their own, or they should be paired with other elements like legal powers. The basic thesis of the piece is that legal power is an indispensable element of a legal right of each and every type in private law. To demonstrate the viability of this basic thesis, the German concept of the so-called claim right (der Anspruch) in private law has been put under scrutiny. Various theoretical models of a claim right, as developed in the German private law doctrine, have been analysed (theories of B Windscheid, E. R. Bierling and A. Thon). All of them conceived claim right as inextricably connected with the legal power to dispose. Basically, the same is true of privileges (liberties in the Hohfeldian scheme of jural relationships), which, as the author thinks, cannot operate without legal powers.

Modern constitutional-law scholarship, paying considerable attention to the methods of interpretation of the Russian Federation Constitution, often bypasses the substantive issues of interpretation of constitutional concepts, usually pushing them into the field of legal technique. A large number of studies focus on the issues of constitutional terminology, i. e. on the external aspect of constitutional concepts, leaving aside their meaning and place in the system of constitutional regulation. Meanwhile, the proper determination of the content and scope of a constitutional provision depends directly on the interpretation of the concept that forms the basis of the constitutional norm. For this purpose, the Russian Constitutional Court, which is authorized to interpret the Russian Federation Constitution in an official and binding way, applies the method of autonomous interpretation, which involves interpreting constitutional notions in the system of constitutional provisions without limiting to the definitions given to them by the statutory regulation. This method of interpretation has not been thoroughly understood in the domestic constitutional-law science in relation to the activities of the Russian Constitutional Court. However, under the conditions of the increasing complexity of the system of legislation, as well as in connection with the participation of the Russian Federation in international organizations, the autonomous interpretation of the Russian Federation Constitution may be in demand in the practice of the Russian Constitutional Court.