The paper analyzes the role of law as a system-forming factor in Russia’s technological leadership. The author criticizes a narrowly instrumental approach that reduces law to a «service» function supporting innovation and argues for a shift to a new paradigm where law acts not as a reactive regulator but as a constitutive foundation of scientific and technological development. The key idea is that law should shape technological ethics grounded in traditional spiritual and moral values and ensure a balance between the biosphere and the technosphere — a «regenerative» model rather than a linear industrial one. Particular attention is paid to the anthropological risks of techno capitalism and transhumanism: the replacement of the individual by an «operator» or consumer, and the loss of free will, dignity, and equality. Law is called upon to keep scientific inquiry within moral and ethical boundaries, fulfilling the tasks of the «anthropological frontier». The author distinguishes between statism — the subordination of science to political expediency — and the national orientation of science as service to the common good. Fundamental science is treated as a strategic reserve of the nation, ensuring autonomous goal- setting and civilizational identity. In the author’s view, technological leadership is not reducible to the imperative to «catch up and overtake». On the contrary, it presupposes the development of Russia’s own standards, taking into account its sociocultural code. Law must move toward anticipatory, projective-adaptive regulation, including the modeling of «regulatory forks» and the creation of legal «safeguards». The paper criticizes a superficial understanding of framework regulation: the law should establish a firm value-based framework, not merely delegate authority. Separately, the author proposes strengthening the legal significance of the State Duma’s nonbinding recommendations as an instrument of indicative planning in lawmaking.

The paper examines conceptual issues involved in implementing the strategic technology project (STP) of Kutafin University (MSAL) to create an innovative legal environment for achieving Russia’s technological leadership. The author characterizes the organizational and legal situation in the regulatory framework governing science that emerged in Russia during the post-reform period. The paper shows that, at the initial stage of legal transformations, the innovation sector did not receive the necessary organizational, legal, property-related, financial, and tax priorities and incentives to ensure the accelerated development of research and development. The author concludes that, in order to address the accumulated issues, it is necessary to create an appropriate legal environment, and the university’s strategic technology project is aimed at shaping such an environment from a research perspective. The paper describes the project’s areas of development: the study of legal instruments for supporting the economy’s technological objectives; the legal adaptation of the country’s industrial development programs; legal support and transfer of developments, etc. The study substantiates the main criteria for evaluating the project: originality, consumer orientation, economic technological feasibility, compliance with international standards, risk assessment, identification of markets for applying the results, project performance indicators, and others. The paper argues for a new positioning of the university in legal science and education as an intellectual center within the infrastructure that supports the legal component of technological leadership, creating an environment for the regulatory, ethical, and economic design of technologies. The scientific component of the program is aimed at developing a model of legal regulation, legal liability, and, more broadly, an architecture of trust under conditions of technological uncertainty. The author proposes a new interpretation of the traditional hierarchy of innovation: not only do technologies respond to legal requirements, but lawyers become embedded in the very logic of design, reframing the definition of «innovation» from a technological dimension to institutional and managerial dimensions. The study substantiates the position that the university is becoming not only a testing ground for regulatory innovations, but also a designer of future technology governance regimes before technologies are fully deployed; examines issues related to the project’s organizational structure and concludes that cluster projects must be restructured to meet the objectives of socioeconomic, technological, federal, and regional programs for technological leadership. It considers the creation of a school of legal innovation as a form of talent pipeline for young researchers. The paper’s overall conclusion is that the university serves not only as a center of current legal engineering, but also as a scientific actor in legal decision-making — an ecosystem for the regulatory forecasting of technologies.

A fine as a form of criminal punishment is defined in the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation as «a monetary penalty imposed within the limits provided for by this Code» (Part 1 of Art. 46). It is generally classified within the subsystem of property-related punishments, while being distinguished from the judicial fine within the external relations of the system of punishments. The internal relations of this subsystem are reflected in the presence of wage or monetary-allowance deductions in the content of correctional labor (Art. 50 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), restrictions on military service (Art. 51), and compulsory labor (Art. 53.1). The content of any punishment consists not only of the legal restrictions it entails but also of its limits. In this respect, a fine may prove to be a more severe punishment than certain types of punishment that appear after the fine in the list of punishments (Art. 44 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) and in the sanctions of the articles of the Special Part of the Code. Other income of the convicted person may also be subject to monetary recovery. Taken together with other statutory requirements, this may worsen the financial situation of the convicted person’s family and «give rise to cases of evasion of payment of the fine requiring its replacement with another punishment» (Part 5 of Art. 46 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). Decisions of higher courts describe typical errors committed in imposing fines.

The paper highlights that criminal procedure law permits the application of the institution of nondisclosure of preliminary investigation data at any pretrial stage of criminal proceedings. It concludes that the category of «preliminary investigation» should be interpreted broadly — as the activity of authorized actors aimed at exposing offenders and fulfilling the purposes of criminal proceedings — which makes it possible to hold persons liable for disclosing preliminary investigation data (Art. 310 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) at the stage of initiating a criminal case. The study notes that the implementation of this institution is directed not only toward safeguarding the rights and freedoms of participants in criminal proceedings but also toward ensuring the interests of justice from the moment a crime report is received. It argues for the unity of the principles of criminal proceedings and the general conditions of preliminary investigation for all participants involved in the proceedings, emphasizing that the institution under study may be applied to suspects and accused persons without violating their right to defense. The author points out that the procedural status of a suspect or an accused person does not include an obligation to sign an undertaking not to disclose preliminary investigation data, but that this does not prohibit preliminary investigation authorities from obtaining such an undertaking. Recommendations are offered to persons conducting preliminary investigations regarding the selection of preventive measures involving restrictions on the liberty of suspects and accused persons when they refuse to provide the undertaking at issue. The paper substantiates that the content of an undertaking not to disclose preliminary investigation data depends on the circumstances of the particular criminal case, thereby underscoring the absence of any need to establish by statute an imperative list of information not subject to disclosure.

Strategic planning is an important stage of Russian state policy. In this study, the author examines the organizational problems involved in constructing a modern criminal policy and analyzes approaches to the formation of its normative and political and legal sources. The author seeks to analyze certain issues related to defining the concept of a criminal law and political doctrine, which remains insufficiently studied in the science of criminal law. The paper concludes that it is necessary to clarify the conceptual and categorical apparatus of strategic planning in criminal policy by distinguishing among the concepts of the legal framework, the sources, and the acts implementing the criminal and political doctrine. The paper provides for the definitions of the concepts under study, systemizes the existing normative and political and legal sources of criminal policy according to the function they perform in the process of strategic criminal-policy planning. The author takes a critical view of the absence of a unified concept of Russian criminal policy and, through specific examples, assesses the extensive cluster of programmatic and strategic documents serving as sources of the criminal and political doctrine as disharmonious, unsystematic, and fragmentary. The author calls for the phased development of a system of legal foundations, sources, and acts implementing the criminal-political doctrine and proposes a specific methodology for carrying out this work.

The paper analyzes the current state of the supervisory review institution in Russian criminal procedure. Particular attention is paid to its relationship with the principles of res judicata and non bis in idem. The study examines the shortcomings of the existing legislation, including the excessive breadth of the «revisionary principle» and the abstract nature of the statutory grounds for review, as well as the procedural uncertainty surrounding the «self-review» of decisions rendered by the Presidium of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation. The author carries out a comparative analysis of supervisory review and the reopening of criminal proceedings based on new or newly discovered circumstances, revealing inconsistencies and overlapping functions between these mechanisms. The study also provides a critical analysis of Ruling No. 5-P of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation dated 11 May 2005. At the same time, it substantiates the need to limit the application of the «revisionary principle» in proceedings before the supervisory review court and proposes corresponding amendments to Art. 412.12 of the Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation. The author concludes that the time limit for reopening criminal proceedings on the basis of new or newly discovered circumstances should be reduced. Based on the findings of the study, the author proposes reforming the «pyramid» of review stages by transforming the supervisory review instance into a cassation instance while simultaneously reducing the number of levels of judicial review.

The public danger posed by an individual has an independent legal significance. The study of historical and current regulatory acts, doctrinal sources and law enforcement practice allows us to conclude that there is a need for a more precise definition of the legal and criteria of the public danger posed by an individual, as well as its relationship to the public danger of an act. Despite its genetic and institutional connection to the theory of the dangerous state of a person, which was developed within the anthropological and sociological schools of criminology, the public danger posed by an individual serves as an important legal means of individualizing criminal liability. The paper presents arguments in support of the following theses: 1) the public danger posed by an individual, in isolation from the act committed by him, cannot be used as a criterion for criminalization and grounds for criminal liability; 2) the legal significance of the public danger posed by an individual lies in its influence on the individualization of criminal liability; 3) criteria of public danger posed by an individual that have independent legal significance include: characteristics of the crime committed; circumstances, characterizing the personality of the accused; the behavior of the person after the commission of the crime; 4) there are sufficient reasons for legislatively recognizing the loss of public danger posed by an individual as a ground for exemption from criminal liability, in relation to subjective discretionary grounds.

The paper conducts a comprehensive study of the mechanism of the incentivizing influence of constitutional law norms on social relations, provides a definition of the concept of incentive regulation in constitutional law, and identifies the types of incentive norms in constitutional law. To date, the topic of a comprehensive analysis of the content of incentive norms in constitutional law remains insufficiently studied and therefore relevant. Rethinking the role of incentive norms can be fruitfully applied to the analysis of constitutional legal doctrine and to the issues of legal design of constitutional legal relations. The refusal to introduce legal incentives in certain areas of human behavior may be explained by the need to preserve non-legal motives and norms that govern human behavior in the absence of legal intervention. The results of the study show that an incentive should be understood as a special legal means that motivates persons subject to the law to positive behavior expressed in a regulatory direction. The state gets the maximum effect from the use of incentives when «soft» incentives are used in conjunction with binding instruments. It is noted that the practice of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation influences the increasing stimulating effect of constitutional law norms. Encouragement, along with such types of incentives as benefits and privileges, is a promising method of stimulating lawful behavior, ensuring discipline and law and order.

Considering the trends towards universalization and differentiation in procedural law, the paper hypothesises that similar patterns exist in the language of procedural law. It identifies the need to study the linguistic and textological distinctiveness of the texts of the Criminal Procedure Code, Civil Procedure Code, Arbitration Procedure Code, and Administrative Procedure Code. The study reveals certain features of the language of these laws in terms of semantics, grammar, vocabulary, syntax, and textology. Examples of homonymy, synonymy, oxymoron, violations of linguistic norms in terms of spelling and correct word order, the use of identical headings, combining heterogeneous elements into structural elements of a normative legal act, and lexical patterns are given. The normative meaning of headings is revealed; examples reflecting the problems of the structure of procedural laws are given. The author names the striking textual feature of the Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation, namely Art. 5, which includes the definition of the main terms used in the law. The syntactic complication of the language of procedural laws has been noted in recent years. The lexical features of individual procedural laws are revealed, demonstrating their substantive originality. An assumption is made about the influence of the quality and features of the normative legal language on the language of judicial acts and the language of legal science.

The paper analyzes the legal regime of a marine vessel, understood as a thing involved in civil transactions. A significant differentiation of definitions of a marine vessel has been established in various sources of international maritime law, domestic Russian and foreign law. The paper reveals the legal nature of a marine vessel in Russian private law regulation as a conditional immovable property, recognized as such by law by virtue of the public law procedure of state registration. The difference between movable and immovable things is shown from the point of view of the moment of transfer of ownership rights in binding relations due to the mixed legal regime of courts in Russian civil legislation, allowing for their both immovable and movable property status. The duality of the legal regulation of private law relations in the field of merchant shipping is demonstrated, including the norms and sources of both civil and international and domestic maritime law (public and private). A comparative legal analysis of the norms of foreign legislation on a seagoing vessel as an object of property rights has been carried out, and the difference between Russian legislative approaches and approaches in legal systems under the influence of English maritime law, in which a seagoing vessel is recognized as a movable thing in all cases, has been revealed.

The paper analyzes the legal regulation of the use of adsorbed natural gas in foreign countries in terms of civil transactions and requirements related to fire and industrial safety. The following countries were selected as the research object: Azerbaijan, Botswana, India, Indonesia, Spain, Italy, the People’s Republic of China, the Kyrgyz Republic, Lesotho, Namibia, the Republic of Armenia, the Republic of Belarus, the Republic of Kazakhstan, the Republic of Moldova, the Republic of Tajikistan, the Republic of Turkmenistan, Saudi Arabia, the United States of America, Uzbekistan, Eswatini, South-African Republic, Japan.

The study highlights the differences in approaches to regulating this technology, which is new to the energy industry in the world, but very promising. In some countries, regulation does not yet allow for this type of fuel or leaves it outside the rationing framework, and in some, it allows for such technology to be put into circulation in an experimental mode. In general, various jurisdictions rely on the actual application of such technology in world practice as a criterion for its regulatory consolidation. The conclusion is made about the possibility of using foreign experience in regulating adsorbed natural gas in the Russian Federation, where this technology is not regulated by law.

The paper presents a comprehensive analysis of the transformation of the law-making function of international organizations, reveals the dialectic of the relationship between formal legitimacy and the actual effectiveness of their acts. It is proved that the evolution of theoretical approaches to the law-making of international organizations has gone from a contractual analogy through the theory of delegation to the concept of international legislation. It has been established that in modern conditions, the formal legal force of acts of international organizations does not always determine their actual effectiveness, namely the instruments of «soft» law often demonstrate a high degree of influence on the behavior of subjects of international law. The study, based on a set of general scientific and special legal methods, analyzes the law-making activities of key international organizations (UN, WHO, ILO, ICAO, OECD) and the problem of the legal validity of their acts. Special attention is given to the ultra vires doctrine and mechanisms for ensuring the effectiveness of advisory acts. Modern trends in the law-making activities of international organizations have been identified: the diversification of forms of rulemaking, the strengthening of technocratic elements, the interpenetration of regulatory regimes, the increasing role of regional organizations and non-state actors, the deformation of law-making procedures and increased attention to issues of legitimacy. The author concludes that it is necessary to find a balance between the effectiveness, legitimacy and flexibility of international rulemaking in the context of global challenges and fragmentation of international law.