Vol 27, No 4 (2023)

The study examines the content of demographic policy, the impact of the state of the population on ensuring state and legal sovereignty, reveals the role of such factors as natural population growth, its quantitative and qualitative characteristics, the country's ability to strengthen national cohesion and maintain independence in the conditions of aggravating interstate relations and the beginning of digitalization era. Russia's policy of reviving competitiveness and influencing the political world order relies not only on diplomatic, but also on other components of state sovereignty, which can be qualified as territorial, industrial, technological, legal, educational, cultural, informational, as well as other components, among which demographic sovereignty plays an important role. It is ensured by a strong social policy in the field of population conservation, its quantitative and qualitative condition, as well as responsible regulation of migration processes.

The research is focused on the essence of the rule of law as a constitutional and legal principle as the basis of the UK constitution and approaches to its determination. The rule of law, being a general legal principle, which has been developed in various legal concepts, including the British rule of law, the German rechtsstaat, the French etat de droit, at the present stage has become one of the fundamental constitutional and legal characteristics, both at the national and supranational level. National concepts of the rule of law, having certain differences and peculiarities, are essentially aimed at achieving similar goals. However, their substantive content is formed on the basis of existing features of specific national legal orders. One of the earliest and most developed in terms of constitutional and legal theory and practice is the UK approach to the rule of law. However, the question of its determining remains relevant at the present stage. The object is the concept of the rule of law developed in the UK, the subject is its specific features and manifestations, as well as approaches to its determination in British legal doctrine and practice. The purpose is to explore the issue of determination of the rule of law in the UK and to form a comprehensive approach to understanding its essence. The methodological basis of the research is constituted by 1) dialectical method, 2) general scientific methods including analysis, synthesis, comparison, analogy, deduction and induction, 3) special methods including logical, formal-legal, comparative-legal, and statistical methods. Based on the analysis the author makes an attempt to define the essence of the rule of law as an integral part of the UK constitution and its key features.

A modern city is a concentration of a whole range of diverse processes and activities, residents with different needs, traditions and beliefs. The city is also an arena of clashing economic, political and social interests. Urban development trends are expressed both in the need for centralized determination of the direction of urban environment, and public demand for greater civic engagement. Accordingly, conflicts cannot be avoided, but it is important not to accept this obvious truth, but to create a tradition of constant thoughtful analysis of ongoing processes, identifying causes and searching for solutions. As awareness of the importance of collective efforts in creating a comfortable urban environment grows, knowledge about the approaches and public technologies used to resolve urban conflicts becomes more in demand. One of the effective tools for resolving urban conflicts are local communities created on sub-municipal territories within the city boundaries. However, the effectiveness of this tool depends on the proper organization of intra-urban communities and provision of legal guarantees for their functioning. This study is carried out using a comprehensive interdisciplinary approach, implying the analysis of urban development and urban environment through the prism of law. The study of Russian and foreign doctrinal sources, along with normative legal acts and materials of judicial and law enforcement practice, allows to form a sufficient picture of the state of urban conflictology and substantiate the role of local communities in their resolution.

The study is devoted to issues of heterogeneity of bioethics, its connection with ethics, law and administration. It highlights and analyzes some laws both at the federal level and at the level of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation, which directrly or indirectly address issues related to bioethics. Special attention is paid to analyzing the legal positions of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation including the issues of presumption of consent to organ and/or tissue transplantation, as well as the ethical side of surrogacy. Given the importance of issues related to bioethics, the work defines the problem of developing an optimal balance between application of legal norms and their effect, as well as the use of bioethics and its principles for the most correct and fair resolution of problems arising in society. Based on the analysis of foreign sources, an attempt is made to review legal regulation of medicine, health care and biotechnology, the most problematic from the point of view of bioethics. The study highlights problems connected with the lack of formally defined and systematic legal regulation of bioethics as well as the position regarding consolidation of provisions aimed at regulating ethical and moral components in regulatory legal acts. Moreover, the work touches upon issues related to the activities of independent organizations whose main activity is the formation of bioethical principles aimed at implementing norms to address emerging ethical issues in Russian legislation.

The study examines the practice of legal protection of the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Site located in Australia. It reflects the main content of the decisions of the World Heritage Committee and the International Union for Conservation of Nature on the protection of the Great Barrier Reef, looks at the features of its management as a World Heritage Site (hereinafter also - WHS), as well as regulatory and organisational solutions aimed at preventing threats to the ecological state of the Great Barrier Reef WHS. The analysis of the legal framework and practice of protection of World Heritage Sites allows to conclude that some elements of the Australian experience can be used to strengthen the institutional and legal framework of the environmental regime of Lake Baikal. The proposal to develop a management plan for the Lake Baikal World Heritage Site in accordance with the requirements and standards of the World Heritage protection system, as well as to adopt special strategic development plans has been formulated. According to the authors, to ensure the effective development of specific management decisions, it is necessary to establish normatively the general principles of management plan formation. Based on the practice of engaging local communities in the management of World Heritage Sites and Australian experience of organising Marine Advisory Committees, the authors have verbalized a proposal to create an Advisory Council of representatives of various spheres of society, operating in the territory of the Lake Baikal World Heritage Site, environmental organisations and representatives of the public.

Is devoted to the study of the place of the murder by the mother of a newborn child as a feature of the objective side of the crime. The paper provides a detailed analysis of the crime scene from the legal, criminological and geographical points of view. Consider separately the place of birth of the child, the place of the murder of the newborn, the places of burial and the discovery of the body of the neonate. Text analysis of court decisions in criminal cases incriminated under Article 106 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation is used as the main method of scientific research. Statistical and geographical methods contribute to study the data on crimes under Article 106 of the Criminal Code, as well as comparative-legal method is used in the study of the act from a criminal law point of view. Conclude that most frequent cases of newborns murder are committed by mothers in regions of Russia with high population density - most often in Central Russia, the North Caucasus, the Volga region, the Kama region and Southern Siberia. In almost half of the cases, this crime is committed in rural settlements. The research shows certain consistency between the high number of committed crimes related to the murder of a newborn child by a mother, the level of income of the population and the level of socio-economic development of the regions. Most often, the place of committing the above acts is a dwelling (house, apartment and bathrooms in them), about 1/4 of the crimes are committed in the yard and/or outbuildings located in it. The authors distinguish separately the places where the bodies of murdered neonates are found, since the place of the crime and the place where the corpse of an infant is found differ due to the desire of recently delivered women to conceal the fact of murdering. Apart from the house, the most common places a newborn corpse is found are garbage dumps, containers and garbage cans, as well as pit latrines and abandoned places in the street.

The United States and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland have a long history of forming and developing legal protection of the rights of crime victims, which is based on the recognition of state responsibility for the failure to protect society from crime and provision of comprehensive support to crime victims, including compensation, benefits, medical care, social services, support of specialized public organizations. At the same time, the norms of public law regulating state compensation for harm to victims of crime are important. In fact, a study of the leading legal institutions of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, which has accumulated positive regulatory and legal experience in ensuring the rights of crime victims and their legal protection, which can be perceived as legislative novelties in the Russian Federation, is indicative. The relevance of the topic is also conditioned by the social significance of the issue of legal protection of the rights of crime victims, as well as the legal reality that has developed in the Russian Federation in the field of legislative regulation of the status of victims of criminal offenses, which directly affects the right to compensation for harm caused to them.

The basic tenet of contract law is freedom of contract, including the freedom to negotiate and the autonomy of the will of the parties. However, practice and doctrine show that many international commercial contracts are formed in conditions of actual inequality of counterparties. The present work is the first comprehensive study of the problem of cross-border bargaining inequality among professional merchants. The aim of the study is to systematize and critically evaluate the effectiveness of legal conditions formulated in the unified acts of international commercial law and private international law to overcome inequality of counterparties at the pre-contractual stage. The study is based on logical, formal-legal and comparative-legal methods. The results and conclusions may be formulated as follows: (1) The set of legal means to resolve the problem of unequal position of the contracting parties is represented by a complex of complementary spheres of unified normative regulation - substantive norms and conflict-of-law norms. (2) Universal conventional legal regulation of the pre-contractual stage has not been developed. (3) Recommendatory acts of substantive unification of commercial law enshrine developed models of regulation of the parties’ conduct in cross-border negotiations. The main legal means to balance the position of the counterparties is the institution of the pre-contractual liability based on the principle of good faith. (4) Both in European law and in Russian law, the conflict-of-law issue is resolved through a combination of non-contractual qualification of the pre-contractual relations and the complex nature of regulation involving the consecutive use of contractual and tort-based connecting factors. (4) Where there is inequality, conflict-of-laws must provide for an equitable solution to situations where the choice of law applicable to each of the contracting parties is not truly free, including permitting a deviation from the principle of autonomy of will. (5) In the absence of parties’ choice of applicable law, the list of criteria for establishing the closest connection between the pre-contractual legal relation and the competent legal order should be expanded: the court should be able to consider the law of the future contractual obligations’ place of performance and the law governing other related contracts.

Notification of a foreign defendant is of fundamental importance for the effective realization of the right to a fair trial. At the same time judicial practice identifies controversial issues concerning the assessment of such notification. In the new geopolitical conditions, the situation is complicated by the sanctions imposed by the states, thus reinforcing the relevance of the research. The purpose is to examine the standards of foreign defendants’ notification established in the Russian court practice, as well as to analyze the sanctions impact on the conventional notification mechanisms on the example of one of the high-profile cases. The authors rely on general scientific research methods (analysis and synthesis, induction and deduction, dialectical method) and special methods (formal legal, comparative legal). The article concludes that in the Russian court practice a different standard - the so-called standard of effective notification based on evidence of the actual awareness of the party about the foreign proceedings - is formed as a counterbalance to the strictly formal standard of notification. The authors note that the standard of effective notification, fulfilling its useful function, should not lead to unjustified refusal to follow the international conventions on foreign persons notification. These conventions retain their binding effect including exclusive situations where they should be applicable. The authors conclude that it is necessary to clarify both the conditions for effective notification standard application and the requirements for the effective notification standard. The sanctions have affected the application of notification mechanisms: Russian courts recognize a foreign court request to notify a Russian sanctioned person as contrary to public policy in a situation where an anti-suit injunction on a foreign proceeding was previously issued.

The era of digital reality offers and shapes new dispute resolution mechanisms, imposes high demands and sets its own rules to be complied with. The introduction of information and communication technologies and artificial intelligence into judicial and out-of-court dispute resolution proceedings in India has shown innovative results quite rapidly. Transformation of digital modes of dispute resolution continues with new research and development of modern technologies that strive for excellence. The purpose of this study is to analyze transformation of digital dispute resolution methods in India, considering the historical evolutionism that led from the Vedic era to the global digital revolution, formation of a hybrid model that combines several modes of dispute resolution - offline courts, online courts and online dispute resolution using digital technologies and alternative dispute resolution methods. However, the digital system is far from being perfect; it has significant drawbacks associated with the risks of cyber-attacks and leakage of personal data containing sensitive confidential and personal information. Besides, the digital literacy of the Indian population located on the periphery is quite low, which greatly reduces the level of trust in electronic courts and online dispute resolution.

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