The paper is devoted to the analysis of peculiarities of legal support of distribution of “boxless” versions of foreign software distributed exclusively in e-form in Russia. In the conditions of digitalization of economic relations, a significant part of the difficulties, Russian software distributors face with, are associated with the imperfection of contractual work in companies rather than with the current legislation. The author highlights the specifics of contractual relations (their prerequisites and content) between the distributer (reseller) and right-holder (vendor) as factors influencing the choice of a contract concluded between the software distributor and purchaser, as well as availability or lack of a tangible (material) medium as an objective form of existence of computer software. The author elucidates such prerequisites for establishing contractual relationships as substantial inequality of negotiating positions, the predetermined choice of applicable law and transformation of classical distributor's perception. Regarding their content, contracts between the vendor and reseller are often characterized by an outright prohibition of sublicensing and the assignment of duties on the reseller to perform a whole set of actions. In turn, a fundamental lack of software versions on tangible media at the vendor calls into question the feasibility of concluding a contract between the reseller and the user of the contract of sale widely used in Russian contractual practice. The analysis of the whole set of these factors with due regard to the Russian law enforcement practice, allows us to draw a conclusion about the advantages of an intermediary model of distribution using the agency contract. This model is the least vulnerable in the context of intellectual rights infringement at all stages of distribution and provides appropriate expert support to the end user of the software.

The paper is devoted to the analysis of the place of absolute civil rights in the system of legal regulation of relations in merchant shipping. The main objectives of the study are to identify the role and general legal features of absolute civil rights exercised in the field of merchant shipping, as well as the search for optimal directions of improvement of civil legislation regulating the relevant relations.
The paper characterizes the interaction between absolute and relative rights in the process of regulating relations in merchant shipping. It is established that property rights, due to their absolute nature, constitute the legal basis for the formation of legally binding relations under private and public law. In turn, the content of property rights is actively affected by public goals and tasks of legal regulation of relations arising in merchant shipping. For example, the extension of the status of an immovable property to a marine vessel is preconditioned due to the tasks of ensuring public policy in the field of commercial navigation. The author highlights the main material objects of property rights. Particular attention is paid to the peculiarities of the property law regime applied to the sea vessel and the objectives of establishing these peculiarities. The author summerizes the main normative and doctrinal approaches to the definition of the concept of a “vessel” and substantiates the necessity of a single normative consolidation of this concept in the legislation of the Russian Federation and international law instruments.
The author differentiates between absolute and relative relations in the field of commercial navigation. The author substantiates the property and legal nature of the relationship arising with regard to sea vessel possession when the vessel is leased out, as well as possession of the cargo on board of the vessel. The author makes proposals concerning inclusion in the Civil Code of the Russian Federation of certain provisions on possession of a thing, as well as proposals on the development of special legal norms governing limited property rights to objects of merchant shipping.

The initial version of the Code of the Russian Federation on Administrative Offences provided for a general statute of limitations (two months) and a special statute of limitations (one year from the date of the commission of an administrative offense) for administrative liability. As a result of multiple amendments to part 1 of Art. 4.5 of the Administrative Code of the Russian Federation, the special terms were increased to two, three and six years depending on the type of an administrative offense. In addition, initially part 4 of Art. 4.5 of the Administrative Code of the Russian Federation established a special procedure for calculating the statute of limitations for bringing to administrative responsibility in case of refusal to initiate criminal proceedings or dismissal of the case. The statute of limitation commenced from the date when the decision was made to refuse to initiate proceedings or to dismiss the case. Although the provision under consideration was later brought into line with the general rule, the legislator considered it necessary to supplement Art. 4.5 of the Administrative Code of the Russian Federation with parts 5.1, 6, 6.1 and 7, linking the beginning of the statute of limitations for administrative liability for certain administrative offenses with certain legal facts. As a result of the study, the author has revealed the discrepancy between the mentioned legislative innovations and the constitutional principle of proportionality of restrictions imposed by the legislator on the rights and freedoms and the principle of legal certainty. The author makes a proposal to improve the current legal regulation of the statute of limitations with regard to bringing to administrative responsibility and the procedure for their calculation.

The paper is devoted to the examination of the main aspects of the legal regulation of exporting dual-use goods in the EU under Council Regulation (EU) No. 428/2009 of 5 May 2009. The main objective of the instrument under consideration is to establish a system common for EU Member States to control effectively the export of dual-use goods in order to ensure compliance of EU member States with international obligations, especially with regard to the regime of non-proliferation of nuclear weapons. The author concludes that the current Regulation on export of dual-use goods is a logical extension and continuation of the EU instruments regulating arms trade with the third countries that pursues the same objectives, i.e. to implement the international legal obligations of the EU Member States assumed under multilateral control and non-proliferation regimes. Under the selected regulatory model, the EU failed to take the opportunity of replacing relevant national regulation; the Dual-Use Export Regulation defines a general framework, leaving it to Member States to take certain measures aimed at promoting an EU-wide approach. It is up to Member States to establish an appropriate control system for transactions, involving dual-use products, carried out by their nationals and legal entities. On the one hand, it allows the authorities of Member States, due to their proximity to economic entities, to take into account to a greater extent the characteristics of the national market. On the other hand, such a system leads to discrepancies in the practice of applying, in theory at least, uniform measures for the whole Union. Thus, even with the legal basis for independent and exclusive regulation of the export of dual-use products, the EU has faced with the unwillingness of Member States to adopt such restrictions and had to focus on coordinating the activities of Member States, leaving them with a considerable degree of independence and autonomy.

The science in general and the legal science in particular have different levels of knowledge and cognition: empirical, theoretical, meta-theoretical. Of particular interest is the interaction between theoretical and meta-theoretical levels, as understanding of this process will allow us to approach the understanding of the boundaries of scientific and non-scientific thinking, to distinguish between theory of law and philosophy of law within or beyond the general theory of law. The studies in this field are complicated by the lack of development of metalinguistic means in jurisprudence. Problem issues in this area include the structure of metalinguistic means, their elements, and the relationship with methodology, optimization of interaction between theoretical and meta-theoretical levels. As an innovative tool for studying metalinguistic means, it is possible to use the concept of “boundary of meanings.” Legal phenomena may be influenced by the “boundary of meanings,” in the area of which the uncertainty factor increases. Some phenomena “originate” from the “boundary of meanings,” in connection with which they constantly experience a crisis of self-identification. Blurring of boundaries entails a crisis of self-identification; establishing hard boundaries absolutizes dogmatic principles.
The structure of metalinguistic means is represented at two levels: legal metaphenomena of the theoretical level and legal metaphenomena of the philosophical level. Metaphenomena of various levels are in a state of interaction. Philosophical level metaphenomena affect the perception of theoretical level metafenomena; they can correct or significantly alter their content. Metaphenomena of the theoretical level, experiencing crisis states, entail changes in the metaphenomena of the philosophical level (changing the legal paradigms, changing the style of legal thinking, etc.).
The study of the issue of optimization of interaction between theoretical and philosophical levels of the legal science with due regard to the heuristic potential of legal metafenomena as a conceptual apparatus of the boundary of meanings combining the theory of law and its philosophy, will allow us to approach the resolution of the question of searching for criteria of scientific and extra-scientific thinking.

 

Socio-political significance and legal status of the institute of administrative justice are widely understood in the context of the thorough analysis of Soviet theory, legislation and practice of the first half of the last century. The choice of the subject matter of the study is preconditioned by the universally recognized periodization, according to which administrative justice in the Soviet period reached the highest level of development in the first half of the 20th century after the foundations of civil proceedings of the Union of the SSR and the Soviet Union Republics were approved in 1961. From this point of view, it is very interesting and useful to study the objective circumstances that took place in the first half of the last century. The study covers the beginning of the Soviet path of development and improvement of the institute of administrative justice, the lower border of which constitutes the final moment of the establishment of Soviet power, and the upper border covers the post-war period of the Soviet Union. The grounds, conditions and procedure of settlement of complaints against actions of Soviet institutions and officials are identified by various bodies. The selected subject matter was actualized during the development and adoption of the first Administrative Procedural Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan, as well as in the course of institutional reform aimed at ensuring the rule of law, including in the areas of public administration and local government.
The purpose of this paper is to study the issues of regulation of public relations arising between the Soviet State represented by public authorities, their officials, state officials, on the one hand, and Soviet citizens and their associations, on the other. To achieve this goal, the following tasks are set: studying the normative legal acts of the Soviet power issued by the central election commissions, All-Russian congresses of councils, people's commissariats, workers'-peasants' inspectorates, councils of workers'-and-peasants' defenses and many other Soviet institutions regulating administrative justice in the first half of the 20th century; determination of grounds, conditions and procedure for appealing or challenging the legality of acts, decisions, actions or omissions to act on behalf of Soviet institutions and officials; analysis of the legal thought of the first half of the 20th century.

The camp courts have been an important element of the Soviet justice system. The purpose of the paper is to identify the main anomalies in the activities of camp courts. The work is based on unpublished documents stored in the State Archive of the Russian Federation (GARF), the Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History (RGASPI), the Joint State Archive of the Chelyabinsk Region (OGACHO). The Department for Camp Courts (UDLS) of the Ministry of Justice of the USSR did not rate the activities of camp courts highly. The main complaints considered massive violations of the norms of substantive and procedural law, lack of generalization of judicial practice, poor organization of trials.
In the early 1950s against the backdrop of increasing formal performance of the camp courts, the UDLS criticism became softer. However, it was not possible to maintain these indicators for a long period. Therefore, UDLS returned to the practice of identifying anomalies in the activities of camp courts and continued to criticize them harshly. The quality of investigative work carried out by the Prosecutor's office and the first departments of places of detention was low. Various conflicts and shifting of responsibility were observed in the camp justice bodies. The courts blamed the Prosecutor's offices and the first departments for the low performance of their work, and the latter reciprocated. As a result, the country's leadership concluded that it was necessary to eliminate camp courts as they failed to cope with the task of prompt consideration of cases.
The identified anomalies can be explained by the harsh conditions of the camp courts. Their employees worked in an environment of high secrecy, could not exchange experience in periodicals. Regional and the All-Union meetings of workers of camp courts were quite rare. There was an acute shortage of legal literature.

In the context of the increased attention to the rights of the LGBTQ community representatives, the problem of allowing transgender people to participate in sports competitions cannot but arise, which is the subject of discussion at the level of the IOC and international sports federations. In these circumstances, the legislator and the sports community face a difficult task to balance the idea of universal equality in the context of access to sports regardless of gender and fair competition, which is reasonably questioned in cases of admission of transgender people to women's competitions.
The analysis of the UK legislation shows that the statutory regulation of these issues is carried out at various levels: the basic provisions are prescribed in the laws, while the detailed procedures for the admission of these persons to competitions are carried out in the relevant guidelines for sports federations. Content analysis reveals that attempts to implement a pragmatic approach to the question of access of persons not meeting the classic ideas of gender identity to sports competitions. This approach develops different strategies depending on the level of competition, type of sport (contact/noncontact), physiological characteristics of athletes, divided for these purposes into several categories. The UK reserves the right to allow transgender athletes to participate in national competitions, ensuring a more inclusive approach on the part of national governing bodies, and develops rules for their admission to international competitions, taking into account the existing requirements.

This article analyzes two of the last innovative financing instruments of the crowdfunding family: Initial Coin Offering (ICO) and Initial Exchange Offering (IEO). Having both a potential financial nature, they will be addressed as «sons» of Equity-based Crowdfunding (EBCF). The main scope of this paper is to show opportunities and dangers of ICO and IEO through a comparison with EBCF. Indeed, at the end of the analysis it will be possible to understand if ICO and IEO can be considered as positive evolution of EBCF or — at least one of them — can be considered so dangerous to appear as a sort of «involution».
In order to answer our question, the discussion firstly focuses on EBCF, the innovative financing instrument being one of the most important figures of the «crowdfunding family». Its importance lies in its financial nature that makes this instrument different from the other models (meaning the donation, reward and lending). Participating in an EBCF-campaign, indeed, lets participants become shareholders of the company they are giving money to. So, the main pros and cons of the participation in an EBCF campaign will be disclosed. In particular, granting easier access to capitals together with the possibility to benefit from the so-called «wisdom of the crowd» allowed EBCF to become one of the most innovative financing tools of our age. However, these advantages need to be mitigated with the main risks occurring during a crowdfunding campaign. These are: moral hazard and frauds, arbitrary exclusion during pre-emptive screening by platform and, last but not least, illiquidity.
Therefore, the discussion moves to the technological advanced new entry of the crowdfunding family, meaning ICO and IEO. In order to understand why ICO and IEO are so similar to EBCF, both the main characteristic of these instruments will be described. With reference to ICO, first of all this article provides a brief description of the technology that makes this innovative financing tool the advanced «son» of EBCF. Indeed, through the launch of an ICO, a company asks the crowd a precise amount of money in exchange of a «token»: an informatic instrument through which the participant may exercise also some financial rights towards the company. From this point of view, an ICO-campaign is very similar to an EBCF one, lying the main difference in the technological solutions used, the queen on those is blockchain. Furthermore, ICO characteristic will be outlined in order to disclose its functioning — meaning the relation with blockchain and smart contracts — and the different models of tokens.
After that, also IEO will be described. IEO could be considered one of the last variants of ICO. The main difference, indeed, lies in the fact that IEO campaigns are not conducted in the website owned by the company but in a specific platform, that is a crypto-asset exchange.
The exam of ICO and IEO potentialities (i.e. programmability, disintermediation and tokenization) will highlight how ICO and IEO may solve most of the mentioned EBCF cons. This will lead to the potential consideration of ICO and IEO as evolution of EBCF. However, also ICO and IEO cons will be highlighted (meaning lack of transparency, not clear regulatory regime and, for IEO in particular, dangerous proximity with investors and potential conflict of interest). From the comparison between ICO and IEO pros and cons it will be possible to discuss on if we are really in front of two evolution of EBCF or nearer to an «involution» of this instrument, considering regulatory solutions in order to avoid this second scenario.

The author considers various aspects of the use of information technologies in the context of globalization in cross-border private law relations. Separately, the issues of determining the law applicable to relations implemented using information technologies (Internet sites, blockchain technologies, mobile applications), the problems of jurisdiction are analyzed. The legal approaches of the Russian Federation, the United States, the EU, and the People's Republic of China are examined. Special attention is given to both the normative legal approaches adopted in these countries, as well as law enforcement practice, decisions and comments of the highest courts. Blockchain technology is analyzed as the most effective information technology that leads to e-commerce processes optimization, ensures the immutability of data in the system and their safe storage and processing. The paper discusses the latest Russian legislation on digital financial assets and digital currency, which can be created based on blockchain technology. It is noted that by recognizing the digital currency as a means of payment, but not recognizing it as a monetary unit, the Russian legislator creates an ambiguous legal field and, in fact, leaves the law enforcement authorities the right to decide on the perception of the digital currency as a specific object of civil rights, sharing it with the concept of a digital financial asset. Through the prism of the influence of the technological environment on the regulation of cross-border private law relations, the principle of technological neutrality is considered. There is a tendency to deviate from the principle of technological neutrality, to develop self-regulatory activities, regulatory mechanisms within the technological environment, to the need to take into account the technology of implementation of relations (which characterizes a particular "state affiliation" of relations) when determining the applicable law, jurisdiction over disputes arising from crossborder relations.

In the context of the reform of migration legislation in Russia, proceeding from the Concept of State Migration Policy of the Russian Federation for 2019-2025 and the Strategy of Scientific and Technological Development of the Russian Federation in 2016, the paper examines the experience of the supranational legal system of the European Union to create a special procedure for the admission of scientists from countries outside the EU, for the purpose of conducting scientific research in EU megascience facilities (experimental reactors, particle colliders, the synchrotrons, etc.).
The subject of the study is the provisions of Directive (EU) 2016/801 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 May 2016. "On the Conditions of Entry and Residence of Third-Country Nationals for the Purposes of Research, Studies, Training, Voluntary Service, Pupil Exchange Schemes or Educational Projects and Au Paring" in the part relating to scientists ("Researchers" in the terminology of the Directive).
Following the general characteristics (history of adoption, action in time, space and in the circle of persons, conceptual apparatus), the general and special conditions for admission of foreign scientists to the EU, the legal features of "admission agreements" with research organizations of the EU member States and migration documents (residence permits or visas for long-term stay), on the basis of which foreign scientists enter and engage in research activities in the EU, are considered.
The final section specifies alternative legal mechanisms for the admission of foreign scientists to the EU — civil law and employment contracts (contracts), including within the framework of the application of EU legislation on the labor migration of highly skilled workers from third countries and the European blue card established by this legislation.

The functioning of developed financial markets is an integral feature of a country with a market economy, in which it is understood primarily as an infrastructure element of state policy, which, with proper management, ensures a qualitative increase in the standard of living of citizens. Therefore, the issues of criminal legal assessment of encroachments on relations in the sphere of financial markets have recently become particularly relevant both abroad and in Russia. In Singapore law, the legal provisions on criminal liability for crimes in the field of financial markets are contained in the Criminal code of the Republic of Singapore, in the laws on the prevention of corruption, on securities and futures. The purpose of the study is to analyze Singapore legislation to compare foreign and domestic criminal law norms on crimes in the field of financial markets, as well as to determine the possibilities of using foreign experience in Russian rule-making practice. The methodological basis of the paper is a set of methods of scientific knowledge, among which the main place is occupied by methods of comparative law and system analysis. The author analyzes the similarities and differences between Singapore and Russian financial and criminal legislation and predicts promising directions for the development of the system of relevant domestic criminal law norms. The author suggests the expediency of using the ideas of criminalization and suppression of fraud in the investment sphere, including in cyberspace, theft of personal data and their misuse, as well as other preparatory actions for serious and grave crimes that may be committed in the financial markets.

The review covers The II International Civil Congress on Comparative Studies (Mozolinskie Readings) "The Role of Man in Civil Law", dedicated to the 90th anniversary of Kutafin Moscow State Law University (MSLA) held online on December 4-5, 2020. The Congress was organized by the Department of Civil Law of Kutafin Moscow State Law University (MSAL), the Scientific and Educational Center of Private Law of Kutafin Moscow State Law University (MSAL), the Statute Publishing house, the Russian Arbitration Center at the Russian Institute of Modern Arbitration, the Institute of International Relations and Socio-Political Sciences of Maurice Thorez Moscow State Linguistic University (The Maurice Thorez Institute of Foreign Languages). The Congress was organized with the participation of the Department of Civil and Administrative Proceedings and the Department of History of State and Law of Kutafin Moscow State Law University (MSLA).
The Congress was attended by Russian and foreign scientists from Austria, Armenia, the Republic of Belarus, Italy, China, Latvia, Poland and the United States, as well as a representative of the world intellectual property organization. The total number of participants of the Congress was more than 600 people.
On the first day of the Congress, a plenary session and a panel discussion "The Role of an and the Role of IT in Judicial Protection" were held. On the second day, master classes for young scientists, a platform for presentations by young post-graduate scientists and creative workshops for students were organized with moderation by leading scientists on the topic of the creative workshop. The sponsor of the creative workshops was the "ConsultantPlus" company.