Moscow University Law Bulletin. 2025. 1.

The changing state of the environment, the constant deterioration of quality and depletion of the planet’s bioresources, the ever-increasing pressure and desire of man to exploit natural resources regardless of the consequences of their depletion to preserve life and biodiversity on earth due to the development of new generation technologies raises the question of the concept, goal-setting, and principles of modern private law. In this regard, there is a need to assess the capabilities of private law in solving environmental problems and challenges of our time. Private law instruments are not always effectively used in this area, and in some cases the potential of private law is completely unrealized. The article raises the urgent problem of “greening” private law, filling the principles of modern civil law with environmental imperatives. On this basis, the ideas about the values of modern private law are expanded, a civilistic qualification of the problems of compensation for environmental damage, the market and circulation of carbon units with a critical assessment of the possibility of classifying them as goods and objects of civil rights, the legal regime of eco-fuels and renewable energy, and the environmental principles of modern industrial property law are given. The author sees the continuation of the dialogue between scientists and practitioners in this area as promising.

The article deals with the scope of a price reduction remedy, with the objective to ensure that the interests of the debtor in the obligation are taken into account, given that this remedy is pro-creditor in nature. The comparative analysis demonstrates that there are numerous variations on the applicability of price reduction remedy to different types of contract breach. It is concluded that the most reasonable approach in the context of the remedies system developed in the European law is to define the scope of this remedy as the cases of defective performance and defects in quantity. This is in line with the German law and with the provisions of the UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods 1980 (CISG). This solution has a solid historical and dogmatic foundation. It is substantiated that the concept of the parties’ agreement on the quality, i. e. on the object of the obligation, rather than on the nature of the actions required for its fulfilment, which forms the basis of the price reduction remedy, presents an obstacle to the inclusion of delayed performance within the scope of application of the considered remedy.

The technological revolution has led to a rethinking of the role of information and personal data, which are now regarded as an independent object of civil rights, possessing economic value and actively involved in civil turnover. This state of affairs gives rise to new risks and threats to fundamental human rights, including the right to privacy, protection of personal secrecy, and the preservation of identity. In this regard, there arises a need for effective legal mechanisms to safeguard these rights in the context of rapid technological development. The article provides a detailed analysis of the habeas data institution, enshrined in the Constitution of Argentina, which ensures prompt and accessible judicial protection of personal data, including the possibility of obtaining, correcting, deleting, or setting a confidentiality regime. Special attention is given to the analysis of the law regulating the procedure for collecting, storing, processing, and transferring personal and sensitive data. The article presents an overview of judicial practice illustrating the application of this institution. The methodological basis of the study includes an analytical-descriptive approach using normative and doctrinal sources, as well as court decisions, which allows for a deep exploration of the topic and demonstrates the importance of habeas data in the modern legal system.

The recent reforms of the Russian data privacy laws demonstrate the enhancement of personal data protection guarantees and, at the same time, enable to trace a trend towards vesting the lawmaking authority necessary to ensure them in the Federal Supervisory Service for Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media. The regulatory framework including federal laws and delegated legislation is to be considered within the framework of the right to personal data protection, and regard to the constitutional requirements for the delegation of lawmaking authority. The analysis of the legislation entrusting the Federal Supervisory Service for Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media with regulatory powers, as well as the delegated legislation reveals its inconsistency with the principle of legal certainty, which is an essential element for adequate data protection. The Russian delegated legislation in some cases leads to the weakening of the personal data protection guarantees and unjustified restriction of the data controllers’ rights and legal interests.

In today’s complex and volatile international political and economic environment, Russian-Chinese trade and economic co-operation has demonstrated high viability and potential. The purpose of this article is to explore the prospects of legal regulation of Russian-Chinese economic and trade cooperation in the context of geopolitical changes, the rise of the digital economy, as well as unbalanced trade structure, increased risks of changes in the investment environment against the background of the two countries’ aspirations for information and technological sovereignty. The leaders of the two countries attach great importance to bilateral relations. Through frequent high-level exchanges and strategic dialogues, they have provided a solid political guarantee for economic and trade cooperation in legal form. The two most promising areas for trade and business development have been identified: international trade and economic integration and import-substitution industrialisation. Legal and economic integration between Russia and China is a process of interpenetration and unification of legal orders and economies of the countries, which realise common economic goals. In the field of trade and economic cooperation, China and Russia are engaged in a two-way movement of integration and safeguarding national sovereignty and interests, resisting the interference of external forces and ensuring the independence and autonomy of cooperation. The key factor in ensuring sovereignty in the pursuit of producing imported goods in today’s situation is the possession of technology of varying degrees of significance. Import substitution is a significant factor in ensuring sovereignty by reducing the economy’s dependence on external supplies.

The recent reforms of the Russian data privacy laws demonstrate the enhancement of personal data protection guarantees and, at the same time, enable to trace a trend towards vesting the lawmaking authority necessary to ensure them in the Federal Supervisory Service for Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media. The regulatory framework including federal laws and delegated legislation is to be considered within the framework of the right to personal data protection, and regard to the constitutional requirements for the delegation of lawmaking authority. The analysis of the legislation entrusting the Federal Supervisory Service for Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media with regulatory powers, as well as the delegated legislation reveals its inconsistency with the principle of legal certainty, which is an essential element for adequate data protection. The Russian delegated legislation in some cases leads to the weakening of the personal data protection guarantees and unjustified restriction of the data controllers’ rights and legal interests.

The article is dedicated to a comprehensive analysis of the principle of solidarity as a system-forming category, formalized in the Constitution of the Russian Federation in 2020. The author substantiates the thesis that solidarity is not merely an addition but the ideological and value core and regulatory principle of modern Russian constitutionalism. It represents a concept-paradigm and a conceptual strategy reflecting the evolution of constitutional worldview in response to relevant historical challenges. Solidarity is interpreted not as a restriction of freedom but as an essential interdependence of individual freedom and the common good, based on national identity and socio-cultural tradition. The author emphasizes its role as a meta-value that integrates the complex social ideas of the Russian Federation’s Constitution and allows for resolving conflicts between constitutional values. The relationship between economic, political, and social solidarity is analyzed, which are revealed not as constituent parts but as functional manifestations of a single principle, where the economic component is essentially foundational, forming the material and property basis for subsequent social realization through existing political mechanisms. Paying particular attention to the economic component of solidarity, the author defines it as a value-oriented guideline, the basis for partnership among authorities, business, producers, and consumers, and the balance of private and public interests; proposes an innovative interpretation of property as an embodiment of solidarity; and formulates, based on the practice of domestic constitutional justice, criteria for the lawful imposition of additional burdens on private economic entities.

The relevance of the study is due to the fact that the constitutional legislator used the legal construction of “municipal formation” to designate the territories of local self-government, without providing tools for their legal construction. First of all, this is due to the lack of a legal definition of the concept of “municipal formation” — it is not in the text of the Constitution of the Russian Federation, nor in Russian legislation at all. There is no legislative definition of a number of other, relatively new terms associated, first of all, with the accelerating process of agglomeration in our country, not only in urban (urbanized) spaces, but also in rural areas, which requires the development of legal aspects of the formation and management of urban and especially rural agglomerations. The article provides an analysis of these processes, as well as justification for the fact that these legal constructions require their substantive definition, including in federal legislation. In addition, the article pays special attention to the temporal retrospective of the territorial organization of local self-government in our country, the subjects and objects of local self-government in the context of the construction of a municipal territorial organization, as well as the issue of understanding the legal nature of the “municipal corporation” in the Russian context and its relationship with the principle of the settlement organization of local self-government.

The introduction of an unprecedented number of international sanctions against the economy of the Russian Federation has led to the need to update the understanding of the term “financial power”, since it is precisely the actions of this branch of government that are currently in the focus of public and professional attention. In the work, the author analyzes the approaches to understanding this term that have developed in Russian legal science and suggests the author’s approach. As a result of the conducted research, the concept of financial power is formulated as a system of authorities, including national central banks or other bodies performing similar functions as functional bodies of the specified branch of government, executive authorities, whose activities are related to the achievement of the goals facing the functional bodies of financial power, representative authorities in terms of their adoption of appropriate legislation. legislation, as well as other authorities, the activities of which can significantly affect the achievement of the objectives of the functional financial authority. The key condition for successful interaction of these bodies, according to the author, is the definition of a system of their relationships, involving strengthening or clarifying the role of the national central bank (using the example of the Russian Federation), which implies the definition of government decisions requiring coordination with the national central bank, as well as the mandatory acquisition of the position of the national central bank by other authorities in cases where decisions and actions of relevant authorities can significantly affect the achievement of goals, assigned to the functional financial authorities.

Education combines the processes of upbringing and education. It is necessary to critically evaluate the possibility of qualifying all educational relations only as relations for the provision of educational services. Education is a three-component process that includes education, upbringing and state final certification. The following elements can be distinguished in the educational process: 1) private law, consisting of a training service provided to the student; 2) administrative law, which is conducting a state final certification and issuing a document confirming that a person has an education and qualifications of the appropriate level; 3) public law, when students are educated and their personality is formed in the process of education. It is necessary to distinguish between the processes of learning and education: learning is part of the educational process and is a civil legal relationship, the subject of which is the creation of conditions for students to master educational programs, arising on the basis of not only the administrative act of the educational organization, but also the will of the student. Education is a complex process that includes, in addition to civil and administrative legal relations between an educational organization and a student, also a state element, which consists in the need to educate and form a personality based on the principles of humanism, patriotism, citizenship, respect for the environment, respect for traditional values.

The study is devoted to the analysis of the implementation of the child’s right to free expression of his opinion on the Internet information and communication network. This right is not absolute, since in some cases it is subject to limitation. These cases are not fixed in a universal international agreement, but vary in different states, therefore the child’s right to free expression of his opinion may be violated due to unjustified restrictions on this right, and vice versa, excessive freedom can lead to harm to the psychological health of the child and his development. The UN is of the view that blocking and filtering of content is a violation of the right to free expression, but blocking and filtering of inappropriate content is justified. Currently, the definition of illegal content varies in many states, and therefore the conditions for limiting such content remain inconsistent. Anonymity on the Internet is also not absolute. In a number of cases, primarily related to the protection of human rights (in the context of research, a child), service providers are required to disclose anonymous user data.

In the article, the author analyzes A. F. Koni’s contribution to the practice and theoretical understanding of the Judicial Reform of 1864. The article touches upon the reasons for the legislative changes related to the judicial system and process that followed the approval of the documents by the Judicial Reform of 1864. It is proposed to distinguish between changes that radically changed the principles laid down in Judicial reform and those that partially adapted it to the circumstances of the time, in particular, to an increase in revolutionary activity. Changes in the legal regulation of the investigation and consideration of state crimes lead to a division of views on the fight against political crime among Russian officials. Liberal circles, including A. F. Koni, advocate greater attention to educational work among young people, the conservative-minded part of society insists on strengthening the repressive principle. In the 1870s, the half-hearted policy of the government, caused by the unprecedented growth of terrorism in the country, failed to establish unity of views on ways to combat anti-government protests among law enforcement officers. The case of V. Zasulich is considered as an example of such half-heartedness in the government’s fight against state crime, when, in order to “mitigate” tension, an attempt was made to present a typical state crime as an attempted revenge murder.

On 16 November 1848 Nicholas I wrote a resolution: “the statement of the reasons for the inordinate slowness with which this, so famous case is conducted, clearly exposes all the inconveniences and shortcomings of our judicial procedure”. These words became the cradle of the judicial reform of 1864. On 20 November 1864, the Judicial Statutes were approved, followed by the highest decree to the Governing Senate on the introduction of judicial reform in two districts — Moscow and St. Petersburg Court Chambers during 1866, and within four years from 1866 — in all provinces. Wishing to revive the idea of the time of the introduction of judicial reform and its pioneers, A. F. Koni prepared memoirs — sketches of those who developed the Judicial Statutes and those who put them into effect. A. F. Koni called the former fathers and the latter children of the Judicial Statutes. Reflecting the living link between generations, A. F. Koni emphasised the commonality of legal and ethical values in the administration of justice. True (fair) justice is a combination of legal and moral requirements in the practical service of a judicial officer. According to the commandment of the fathers and children of the Judicial Statutes, in the high cause of justice, the judicial officer “should be guided, along with the prescriptions of the positive law, by the unconditional and eternal requirements of the moral law”. In the twenty-first century, this precept retains its relevance. These and other questions are considered through the A. F. Koni’s views in this article.

The article analyzes the linguistic means and textual techniques by which A. F. Koni characterizes moral concepts in his journalistic works dedicated to great Russian people — contemporaries and predecessors. The tactics of refinement, juxtaposition, gradation, intensification and their varieties are considered. The material includes speeches and essays by A. F. Koni “The Moral image of Pushkin”, “In Memory of Turgenev”, “Memories of Chekhov”, “Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov”, “Pirogov and the School of Life”. The theoretical basis of the research is modern communicative and functional grammar, based on the concept of the author’s image and the idea of the interaction of unit and context. The analysis allows us to conclude that it is important for A. F. Koni to accurately characterize the moral qualities of the described subject and the author’s desire to involve the reader in thinking not only about these qualities, but also about the relationship between the individual and society and the problem of moral choice. The general approach of A. F. Koni to assessing the personality of the “great Russian man” is to affirm the continuity of the achievements of the hero of Koni’s speech or essay in his professional field of activity and his exceptional moral qualities, an important place among which is occupied by patriotism. The hero of Konya’s speech shows these qualities in their highest, true version, the difference of which from the possible “lower version” is explicated in the text.

The article is devoted to the work of the outstanding Russian lawyer A. F. Koni in the context of his ideas on moral principles in criminal proceedings and general problems of judicial ethics. Two main forms of moral principles in judicial activity (internal and external) are distinguished, and A. F. Koni’s ideas regarding moral principles in the behavior of a judge, prosecutor, and defense attorney are considered.

In this article the author attempted to show the importance of A. F. Koni as a scholar and practitioner for improving judicial activity in general and justice in particular. He focused on the particular relevance of Anatoly Fedorovich’s scientific works in the era of introducing digital technologies into criminal proceedings. As an argument, the author used A. F. Koni’s statements regarding the issues covered.