Chief Editor’s Note
Articles
This article discusses the current trends in Russian legal doctrine and legislation on aligning the legal status of women and men, taking into account the legal positions of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation and the European Court of Human Rights.
It analyzes and critically reflects upon the gender aspects and content of those branches of Russian law in which such aspects are most clearly represented, either objectively or by tradition – techniques for gender neutralization of legal norms, the establishment of gender privileges and gender restrictions in legal status.
Constitutional law: the basic premise of gender equality, preferential treatment for certain categories of citizens, gender limitations; problems of quotas for women’s representation in government, administration and other structures, provisions for women’s representation in party electoral lists, etc.
Criminal Law: trends in the gender neutralization of crimes of a sexual nature while maintaining criminal responsibility for offenses against pregnant women, etc.; gender neutralization of preferential treatment in the punishment of persons with children.
Family Law: Russia’s traditional view of marriage and parenthood; privileges for women in the divorce process, disputes about children, maintenance obligations; gender restrictions on adoption, assisted reproductive technologies; variants of gender neutralization of some family law norms.
Labor law: the preservation of absolute protection of the rights and interests of pregnant women and mothers of young children; the trend for gender neutralization of the legal status of parents of young children; continued restrictions on women’s access to certain areas of work.
Analysis of the legal positions of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation and the European Court of Human Rights shows that on a number of gender equality aspects in Russian legislation and law enforcement practice, the views of these courts differ greatly. At the same time, there is a convergence of views on certain issues (for example, on the implementation of the legal status of persons with family responsibilities).
The article is devoted to the analysis of arbitrability of disputes between a privatization body and purchaser arising out of a sale and purchase agreement of a privatization object or relating thereto. Author reached a conclusion that before the Law of Ukraine on Enactment of Some Laws of Ukraine Aimed at the Improvement of Privatization Process dated 16 February 2016 No. 1005-VIII entered into force disputes in relation to alienation to privatization objects could have been referred to international commercial arbitration.
Based on the analysis of court practice in relation to sale and purchase agreements which contained arbitration clauses, author reached a conclusion thatsome of the arguments against arbitrability of this category of disputes did not lose their relevance even after the said law entered into force.
Comments
The most recent and effective method to resolve aconflict between countries is information war. Information warfare, i.e. propaganda, information sabotage, blackmail, could be more damaging than the effects of the traditional methods of war. The government must be prepared to prevent and counteract the bleeding-edge techniques of warfare that is to work out measures, to oppose enemy’s information weapons , to gain information superiority , to develop a society thatis immune to disinformation, to elaborate a concept of information warfare counteraction.
The authors have examined both foreign and Russian sources of law which define the requirements for the government activities to oppose information warfare. They also refer to the opinions of foreign and Russian researchers, politicians and public figures who have commented on the concept and features of such political and legal constructs as information warfare and information weapons. The problem of information warfare must be identified as a profoundly serious and damaging threat. This paper provides the features of information warfare and the methods to resist it as well as the proposals to amend the domestic legislation to create conditions for an accurate understanding of this political and legal phenomenon. In addition, it points out that the amendment of the Information Security Doctrine is not sufficient to counterbalance the threat of information warfare. In a certain document it is necessary to recount all notions, requirements and methods for the government actions aimed to gradually change the situation, particularly, the development of sectoral (information security) legislation, specialists training to be able to deal with informational and psychological aggression forming public opinion through the government-run mass media, etc.
Book Review Notes
ISSN 2312-3605 (Online)