The 1990s in Russia were marked by major political and economic reforms. Those significant transformations inevitably changed relations within society, and the legal regulations that were supposed to control them demanded a considerable change as well.

Law concerning discrimination in employment in Russia was expected to undergo a serious transformation after the fall of the Soviet system, when the Iron Curtain was lifted and the country became more open to Western legal concepts and international law. Nevertheless, most existing anti-discrimination norms in Russian law are based on the traditional concept of “uniformity and differentiation in regulation of labor” that is ill-suited to meet the challenges of amarket economy and the emergence of employment by privately owned enterprises which may have greater motivation to discriminate than state-owned-enterprises. The aim of the author is not to present an encyclopedic overview of all aspects of the topic of discrimination, but rather to concentrate on the most significant areas in which Russian law and practices diverge from international labor standards. To do so, this article analyzes current Russian legislation and landmark cases concerning gender, disability, age and some other areas of discrimination in employment with respect to their effectiveness and conformity to international labor standards on the matter. The issues of a clear definition of discrimination in employment, of protection from indirect discrimination, and of alleviation from the burden of proof are also examined. The author concludes this work by offering the reader several suggestions about how to harmonize Russian domestic law on employment discrimination with international labor standards while giving due respect to national legal and societal traditions and the current economic environment.

Then pursuing publications in international peer-reviewed journals, many legal scholars from Russia and the wider post-Soviet space face severe difficulties. This paper looks atthe reasons for these difficulties in two analytical steps. Firstly, it offers aquantitative analysis of the output of the two leading international law journals that accept submissions on doctrinal law to see how often in the two preceding years (2014 and 2015) postSoviet legal scholars with their main place of work at a university have made it into these journals. Secondly, it asks what the qualitative standards for publication in such journals are and why they are at odds specifically with the scholarly tradition in the wider post-Soviet space. The main finding of the paper is that there is a mismatch between the high goals posed by university administrators in elevating universities to some standard of excellence and the limitations presented in the field of legal scholarship. The conclusion is that a substantive re-thinking of the approach to legal scholarship is required. The introduction of ‘early legal writing’ at least at the level of master studies is one recommendation to adequately prepare a future generation of legal scholars.

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.

This article examines Russian law on criminal market manipulation and compares it with equivalent rules in Western Europe. The Russian rules do not work; no one has been charged or sentenced for market manipulation since the relevant laws came into force. The Russian rules on criminal liability for market manipulation do not complement the general rules on fraud, they duplicate them. Our prohibition on market manipulation is unclear and is not comprehensive, i.e., there are gaps in the law. This prohibition and the criminal law rules based on it require serious revision; it is necessary to eliminate the gaps and make the law clear. It is inappropriate to subordinate the liability for this crime to the fact of causing consequences expressed formally in a sum of money. The rule of law requires a logical generalization. Establishing criminal liability for negligent market manipulation in Russia seems premature.

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.

Reviewed book: Vladimir Lebedev and Elena Radevich (eds.) Labour Law in Russia: Recent Developments and New Challenges (Adapt University Press 2014).