Under the sanctions imposed on the Russian transport sector, the procedures governing the conclusion, performance, and termination of financial lease agreements for air and water transport in Russia are undergoing change. The paper examines the qualifying characteristics of financial lease agreements for air and water transport, as the legal characterization of such agreements is crucial to the allocation of the risk of deterioration or loss of transport vehicles and to the determination of the parties' rights and obligations. The paper substantiates the conclusion that, by their legal nature, such agreements constitute either financial lease agreements or bareboat charter agreements with a subsequent purchase option (bareboat charter agreements on terms of leasing), where the lessor acquires a transport vehicle for the lessee from a seller under a supply contract, as well as where a watercraft or aircraft is constructed under an independent contractor agreement. The author outlines possible approaches to negotiating the specific terms of financial lease agreements for air and water transport in order to ensure a balance of the parties' interests and describes civil-law mechanisms capable of encouraging transport-sector entities to enter into and duly perform such agreements.

The paper examines threats to the sovereignty of the Russian Federation associated with allegedly unfair practices employed by foreign internet platforms (digital platforms). It analyses approaches to countering such practices, taking into account public opinion, assessments of their overall effectiveness, and their impact on the protest potential of Russian society. The paper introduces into academic discourse information on recent U.S. legislation presented as confirming the existence of political censorship implemented by the world's largest internet platforms. The author addresses gaps in assessing the influence of foreign internet platforms on Russia's information capacity and proposes new instruments for countering censorship applied by such entities. The application of the proposed instruments may help reduce protest potential, increase trust in public digital policy, and preserve the competitive nature of the Russian segment of the Internet. The paper further proposes enhancing both the level and quality of civil society participation in defining policies aimed at strengthening information capacity in order to protect Russia's sovereignty in cyberspace.

This paper analyses handling electronic evidence, or electronically stored information (ESI), in U.S. civil procedure. The author describes the principal stages of e-discovery: identification, preservation, processing, reviewing, and data transferring. The paper substantiates critical role of litigation holds and metadata in ensuring the authenticity and integrity of evidence. It demonstrates that a failure to comply with ESI preservation obligations may result in serious procedural sanctions. Particular attention is devoted to technology-assisted review (TAR) that has transformed document-review practices. The author examines both its efficiency and its susceptibility to manipulation, including through modifications to the training dataset. It is noted that the use of TAR requires lawyers to possess substantial technical expertise and gives rise to disputes concerning the disclosure of algorithms. The paper emphasizes the need for the parties to reach prior agreement on ESI-production formats and the protection of confidential information. It critically assesses the high cost of e-discovery and identifies risks associated with unequal access to relevant technologies. The analysis of U.S. practice reveals both the potential and the limitations of digital evidentiary tools and may serve as a reference point for reforming analogous procedures in Russian civil procedure.

The paper examines the specific features of the legal status of professional participants in the investment market that play a significant role in the redistribution of financial capital flows, particularly in their interactions with retail investors. The quality of the services they provide, as well as the overall stability of the investment market, depends on the proper legal regulation of their activities. In general terms, these entities provide qualified assistance to investors and investment recipients in carrying out transactions that facilitate investment. At the same time, the contemporary investment market is not static: it is continually affected by such developments as digitalization, structural transformation, and the blurring of the boundaries between the functions of its participants. These factors must likewise be taken into account in the legal regulation of the relevant relationships. The author concludes that the activities of professional participants require specific regulation in order to ensure the security and transparency of investment activities, promote their development, and mitigate adverse consequences arising in the investment market. Accordingly, the legislature imposes enhanced requirements on such participants, relating to their organizational form, financial soundness, internal structure, licensing, inclusion in specialized registers, restrictions on combining certain types of activities, and business reputation.

Criminal law providing for the most sever forms of state coercion is subject to heightened legal requirements. Effective constraints on criminal law cannot be defined solely at the level of federal legislation or derived from extra-legal sources. Contemporary understanding of the rule-of-law state presupposes that criminal law is limited by constitutional provisions. Comprehensive constitutionalization of criminal law simultaneously takes into account the rights of persons subject to criminal liability and of victims, preventing both excessive and insufficient coercion. Formally, constitutionalization aims to maintain criminal legislation in compliance with constitutional provisions. In substantive terms, it safeguards individual and collective constitutional rights by defining the constitutional limits of criminal legislation within which the lawmaker retains discretion to select the most appropriate means of legal regulation. The direct effect of constitutional norms prevents the enactment of unconstitutional criminal legislation, unconstitutional law enforcement, and unconstitutional legal interpretation. The study defines the constitutional foundations of criminal law and elucidates the logical structure of the relevant norms aimed at both legislators and law-enforcement authorities. By their nature, such norms either constrain or legitimize criminal law and criminal policy decisions, while priority is accorded to restrictive prescriptions. In substantive terms, the constitutional foundations are predominantly expressed through the State's negative obligations in the sphere of criminal law.

The paper examines the element of joint commission in offences involving negligent concurrent causation of harm. It considers approaches to defining joint commission, its possible external manifestations depending on the type of negligence involved, and its substantive and procedural significance. Analyzing courts' practice and scholarly positions, the author argues that a mere «coincidence of actions» or a «convergence of causal links» does not constitute genuine joint commission. Its defining element is conscious and volitional interaction between the relevant actors. Particular attention is given to the distinctions between joint commission under intentional and negligent forms of fault, including conscious negligence and criminal recklessness. The author observes that a distinctive feature of the joint nature of a negligent offence is that it manifests itself in fact as a pre-offence stage, which is not of criminal-law relevance if the consequences under criminal law do not occur. The paper also addresses the classification of negligent conduct as a jointly committed offence where concurrent contributors do not recognize a socially dangerous nature of their acts or omissions to act. To conclude, the study explains the significance of the joint nature of a negligent offence and its implications for the individualization of punishment for concurrent contributors, the conduct of uniform criminal proceedings in respect of all culpable persons, and the civil law procedure for compensating harm caused by the offence.

The paper substantiates the need for detailed regulation of issues related to ensuring everyone's right to judicial protection in territories where special legal regimes are temporarily in effect. It is necessary to develop a consistent criminal procedure policy that takes into account constitutional guarantees of individual rights (with only minimal permissible and reasonable restrictions), as well as legislation based on this policy, for the period of emergency or martial law. Given current circumstances, the legal framework governing the judicial system, criminal procedure and other procedural matters, the operation of specific law enforcement agencies must provide for the specifics of the administration of justice in special conditions. Establishing the right direction for territorial legislation under special legal regimes is crucial. Possible directions may include: transferring the authority to investigate all or a significant portion of criminal cases in the relevant territories to military investigative bodies, without observing the personal jurisdiction rule, with subsequent consideration by military courts; having civil (territorial) courts handle criminal and other cases, subject to a change in territorial jurisdiction; developing and adopting autonomous military-judicial legislation that provides for a special structure of pre-trial and judicial bodies, as well as specific features of investigating and adjudicating criminal cases in military courts under special legal regimes. To ensure the realization of the right to judicial protection, it is also necessary to first provide a preliminary scientific definition and then to establish by law a new type of jurisdiction, namely the jurisdiction applicable under special legal regimes.

The paper is devoted to the theories of normative conflicts of the Argentine legal philosophers E.V. Bulygin and C.E. Alchourrón. Guided by R. Carnap's methodological principle of tolerance, the thinkers developed two distinct theories of normative systems and normative conflicts. In their terminology, one may be designated as hyletic, and the other as expressive. The scholarly work of Bulygin and Alchourrón largely developed in a polemical dialogue with H. Kelsen; accordingly, both theories were significantly influenced by the ideas of the classical and later versions of the pure theory of law. The early, hyletic theory focuses on the problem of consistency and completeness of a normative system. The function of correcting this system is performed not only by the legislator but also by legal science (dogmatics). In this framework, the concept of a normative conflict is treated as equivalent to a logical contradiction. This understanding of the normative system and jurisprudence converges with the neo-Kantian version of Kelsen's theory, despite the criticism it received from the Argentine thinkers. By contrast, the expressive theory of norms treats a normative conflict as a relation between two facts or two expressions of will, the simultaneous fulfilment of whose requirements is impossible. The focus of this approach is the ordering (hierarchisation) of legal norms, which corresponds to derogation in the sense of Kelsen's later theory. The problem of the validity of unconstitutional laws warrants separate consideration. Arguing with Kelsen's concept of alternative empowerment, Bulygin proposes his own solution, namely by drawing a clear line between a norm's place within the system and whether it may be applied in practice.

Technological sovereignty of the Russian Federation is one of the most important objectives under the anti-sanctions policy implemented in response to the economic actions of unfriendly countries. The achievement of the country's technological sovereignty is largely hindered by the gap between science and production. To address these problems, the Concept for Technological Development for the period up to 2030 proposes the creation of technology development ecosystems. The subjects of these ecosystems are technology holdings and research consortia as new participants in legal relations concerning the creation and use of high-tech products including intellectual products. The paper analyses how a technology development ecosystem and its participants are shaped under the existing civil law framework. It seeks to map the ecosystem's subject structure and to clarify the role and legal standing of technology holdings and research consortia.

The article seeks to characterize the legal system of the Mongol Empire, which continued to operate in its successor uluses (termed here provisionally as Chinggisid law), as the ius commune of medieval Eurasia. Chinggisid law originated as the legal framework for the largest steppe empire in history and retained its relevance even after the collapse of Chingis Khan's empire, continuing to be applied in states governed by his numerous descendants. Chinggisid law's sources, principles, and institutions remained in use in both the direct successors of the Mongol Empire (or its uluses) and former vassal states. In some cases, these legal elements endured even under rulers who explicitly distanced themselves from their Mongol forebears. The author highlights the core state and legal institutions of Chinggisid law, which underpinned a unified legal space in medieval Eurasia and allowed officials from different polities to interact using a common legal framework. These included consistent principles of law-making and of administrative and judicial practice, shared legal sources, and similar institutions for governance, taxation, etc. The role of Chinggisid law as the region's ius commune is further evidenced by the borrowing of some of its institutions by states that retained their own legal orders under Mongol rule — notably, Muscovite Rus'.

The paper challenges two theses established in the field of legal history regarding the 1653 Instrument of Government. The analysis of original 17th–18th century editions proves that the collocation Instrument of Government is not the authentic title of the document, but represents a later (19th century) scholarly addition, thereby casting doubt on the conventional translation tradition. A linguistic-legal analysis demonstrates that the prevailing translation in Russian literature «orudie upravleniya» is semantically flawed and falls under the category of «false friends of the translator». The authors argue for using the terms «Pravitelstvenny akt 1653 goda» or «Uchreditelny akt ob upravlenii gosudarstvom 1653 goda», which reflect the legal meaning of instrument as a legal document. The paper challenges the commonly accepted classification of the act as England's first written constitution. It is shown that this approach is a historical anachronism that disregards the continuity of the British constitutional tradition, which dates back to Magna Carta of 1215. It is proved that the Instrument of Government is a missing link, an extraordinary act that legitimized the military dictatorial regime of the protectorate, which was rejected after the Restoration of 1660, and is not a valid source of British constitutional law. It is suggested that the document should be situated within the framework of the three-level model of the uncodified British constitution as a significant historical artifact that exemplifies a failed endeavor to impose rigid codification, which proved incompatible with the evolutionary character of the British constitutional system.