The article considers the fundamental issues of legal theory, namely, the interrelation between sovereignty as the status and independence of the State as a quality and a property of legal reality. The specifications of legal sovereignty are compared with the specifications of such a political form of government as an absolute monarchy to which sovereignty was a determining factor and style. Authoritativeness created by sovereignty is closely connected with the problems of domination and subordination. The author analyses the concept of "the aesthetic state" born in the Renaissance and transformed during the period of sovereignty and absolute monarchy development. Such category as "an individual law" used to define sovereignty and independence of the state is of particular importance for the analysis of the problem. The intersection of legal, cultural, psychological elements allows to reveal the most important aspects of the problem. Sovereignty as a special legal status may be expressed in a collective or individual form. Sovereignty is not identical to the dictatorship, but it includes an element of domination. The dictatorship suggests the limited period of its existence and the situation of emergency, sovereignty claims to be of eternal, or at least, of continued existence. Sovereignty does not coincide with independence of the state, for the latter tend to focus on the state of freedom and self-determination, while sovereignty, always tends to hegemony. «Masks» of the sovereignty are diverse, but its essence remains indispensable. Sovereignty forms the area of integrity and requires concentration of authority in one center. For the sovereignty the institute of representation is of secondary importance for it. Political attention is focused on the uniform subject of authority. Subjectivity is the defining feature of the independence of the state. Monarchical and republican forms of government are rather amorphous forms and cannot be directly and unambiguously associated with the concept of independence of the state. With regard to the legal sphere, sovereignty, being a product of law, forms norms and institutions affecting the surrounding contexts. Sovereignty is characterized by exclusivity due to subjectivism that is inherent to sovereign rule-making. Establishing laws of the sovereign characterize both activities of individual and collective sovereigns. The history of monarchies and republics is very similar due to these properties, sovereign existence.

The article represents critical notes made by the authors in the margins of the book devoted to the research of the issues of law formation from the perspective of transcendental categories of "myth", "mysticism", "magic." In Prof. Isaev's opinion, these categories have largely determined the course of formation and development of European law and its corresponding political and legal ideas. The title of the research work, "The Shado w Side of the Law", suggests that the author of the monograph intends to devote the reader into the intricacies of behind-the-scenes conflicts of interests between financial and industrial groups struggling for law that upholds their values and interests. However, the essence of the book is reduced to finding the answers to the questions: "Does the quintessence of law exist?"; "Does the nature of law depend on the spirit of the time?"; "Where does the law come from and what limits it?"; "What causes the appearance of law?"; "What form does the law take?"; "By means of what does law influence the course of development of the processes of objective reality?". The monograph appeals to upholding the viability of the natural law theory and viewing law under the irrational perspective. It is not unexpected that the author uses the term "irrational" n the title of the book, because the author considers the centrifugal force of the process of law formation under the perspective of myth, mystery and magic. It is impossible to a priori accept all provisions of the reviewed research, as well as not to mention its strong points. Among the primary merits of the research we should mention the novelty of the problems raised and resolved, namely, the problem of correlation between a rational element of law and an element that goes beyond explanation, which turns out to help to show immanent ties of law with the society's world perception at a certain stage of social development rather than to be an idle activity. Indeed, some elements of both mythological and mysterious perception of the world from the past are brought with the wind of history to our present day and manifest themselves in different legal systems.

Public law, being an independent component of the legal system, is characterized by the unique composition of the objective basis. Its main components are such phenomena as public interest, public goal-setting, public law policy, public law activities (practice) and the common good. The author substantiates the validity of understanding the objective public interest as the interest of the society aimed at achieving efficient results of its development by means of concentrating productive forces of the society, its material and spiritual resources. The ultimate aim of the public interest is not only and not so much as to produce goods, as to allocate them fairly among all members of the society. In the modern context, fair distribution is understood as using common goods in compliance with communist principles as required (higher education, city infrastructure, natural environment, etc.) or to the extent equal to the contribution made by every subject to produce the common goods. The process of implementing the public interest starts with the process of goal-setting, i.e. determining by the society and the state current and perspective goals of their performance. The public law tree of objectives is many-layered and includes the objectives of law in general and its own objectives, objectives of essential types of legal activities, law-making, law-enforcement and law-upholding. The second stage comes to policy-making, i.e. determining the measures the society and law must take in order to secure successful implementation of the public interest. The policy, as the process of rational thinking, is not the same as the subject matter of a purposeful activity. The latter is an independent phenomenon, a direct real life, aimed at implementation of the policy. The final result of the purposeful activity is reflected in changes in the society and the state in accordance with the percept public interest and in formation of the system of common material and immaterial benefits. The State in order to fully utilize common goods for the purpose of providing sustainable law and order and material wealth of individuals is bound to perform complex and diversified activity to organize the production of such common goods, their distribution, safeguarding and protection. This activity, its results and emerging legal relations as a system form the uniform subject matter of public law.

The actual situation shows that at all times the war in its various forms, and now even more widely than ever, is used to address national, international, global issues. In many countries the war has become the basis of their life. This updates the problem of the war and the understanding of its essence. The war is a complex phenomenon that has its own philosophy designed to answer the questions about the dialectical nature and sense of the war and struggle; theory engaged in the development of the causes, types of war, victories and defeats, its strategy and tactics; its practice related to the art of war. The war is connected with politics, it is often carried out with the use of the armed forces, but it is not restricted to them. Oneway analysis of the war and its negative assessment narrow the view of the problem of war, divert from understanding the essence of the war, and do not allow understanding the metaphysical, historical and civilizational significance of this phenomenon. In addition to another factors, the war formed the human civilization. A lot of wars did a favor to the mankind in its history. Byzantine campaigns of old Russian princes introduced Christianity to Ancient Rus. The struggle of medieval Russia against feud, against the Tatar-Mongols, Lithuania, Poland contributed to the gathering of Russian lands, creating a single, centralized strong state. After the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945 the Soviet Union acquired the status of a great power. The war can take ideological, religious, political, economic, biological, and many other forms. It can be represented by psychological pressure, intimidation, "cold" war and other methods that are not directly related to armed actions. The views of thinkers and the history prove that the peace (in the meaning of the absence of war) should not be characterized in a positive way only, the war cannot be regarded as an absolute evil and merely external accident caused by something that should not exist, said Hegel. The war and peace are the Logos of the life, the universal (cosmic) law, the law of the existence of the world and the measure of everything. They, like everything else in the world, are subject to the laws of dialectics. The war is the manifestation of tuniversal divine encounter of the foundations of space, natural, and social life. Therefore, the attitude to the war that, according to Heraclitus, is eternal, and the eternal, according to Kant, peace that is possible only under certain conditions, can be only antinomian. Logically, they can be both condemned and justified. The war is a malicious act committed because of struggle, competition, conflict, and for the democratic progress. At the same time it serves as justification of the guilt for eternal peace, stagnation and decay that lead to death. The task of the politics is to anticipate the social consequences of each of the opposites, to take timely and appropriate measures and perform actions in practice.

The article provides the definition of the concept «law enforcement of public interests in coal-mining industry», under which it is advisable to understand rights and duties of legal entities that are enshrined in regulatory legal acts and in rulings of governmental authorities with regard to the use of mineral resources, mineral resources blocks, and wastes aimed at achieving public purposes in the sphere of efficient use of mineral resources and environmental protection during the process of subsoil use and development of social and economical infrastructure. The author gives the definition of "legal measures to ensure public interests" for subsoil use. He also substantiates the classification of legal measures that ensure the public interests in the subsoil use.

Criminal Complicity is the most vulnerable element in the system of criminal law norms. Its practical application is characterized by contradictions and discrepancies of fundamental research. The author shows the main reason that served as the "apple of discord" among experts. In the author's opinion this reason is the contradiction between the traditional division of complicity into the perpetrators, organizers and instigators with the modern understanding of the collaborative activity that is considered to be a constructive element of a crime under the law. According to the findings of the psychological science, collaboration p presupposes a conscious interaction of several individuals that is limited in time and place of its implementation. Named traditional forms of criminal compliance do not possess these characteristics as they are separated independent acts. As a result of overlapping of these conflicting views and legislative provisions that reflect them, the practical application of the rules on complicity results in inconsistent and, to some extent, arbitrary evaluation of the same acts as group crimes that have an obvious sign of collaboration (actual complicity) or as complex complicity (traditional), which predetermines their different responsibility and punishability. Since the legal formula of criminal complicity requires joint action of accomplices, the traditional forms of complicity are either artificially adjusted to it, or collaborative actions are expanded to the limits of conventional forms giving rise to the confusion in qualification of a crime, which leads to law enforcement improvisations and violations of the principles of legality and fairness with regard to the issues that involve the responsibility of accomplices. In the author's opinion, the current situation can be eliminated by means of allocating conventional forms of complicity into a separate group of rules that are named "involvement in a crime" and that do not possess such a criterion as collaboration. The former includes group crimes that need specific qualification, responsibility and punishability. To this end, the author suggests that the whole system of rules that are similarly to criminal complicity connected with the facts of concourse of criminals in connection with the commission of a crime should be systemized, the whole system being divided depending on the extent of interconnection of objective and subjective elements into: 1) reckless co-damnification; 2) involvement in a crime; 3) criminal complicity; 4) participation in a crime. This proposal, as the author believes, will eliminate the existing contradictions in the institution of complicity, systemize criminal law rules concerning the concourse of criminals on the grounds of risk and the phenomena they reflect and consequently facilitate the qualification of such crimes, which will facilitate the emplimintation of the principles of criminal law and its efficient application. The author also provides drafts of relevant rules.

The author considers commonly distinguished elements of nationalization, including purposes, reasons, objects of nationalization, refundable and derivative character of this ground to terminate the private property right, admissibility of contesting the nationalization decision. The article demonstrates that all these elements are differently understood in the modern civil law doctrine. (Belov, V.A., Gubin, E.P., Mazaev, V.D., ShCHennikova, L.V., etc.), and sometimes they are just named without any necessary clarifications being given. The author analyses the existing legislation including the rulings enacted by The State Council of the Republic of Crimea in 2014. Special attention is given to the draft laws introduced in the State Duma of the Russian Federation that were aimed at regulating relations with regard to nationalization. Although the majority of the introduced draft laws had significant shortcomings, their analysis of their of interest for studying the structure of nationalization, including different approaches to the grounds and procedure of property seizure. The draft of the Federal Law "On Protection of property rights in real property when transferring to federal property for the needs of the Russian Federation" developed by the Ministry of Economic Development of the Russian Federation in 2014 is subjected to thorough analysis. To sum up the author concludes that all draft laws with regard to nationalization that have been developed in the recent years (including those that do not have direct references to this term) to some extent threaten the rights and interests of owners. The author states that the overwhelming majority of the demands for individuals' private property of public law institutions should be dealt with by means of procurements (in case of movable things), and when public law institutions are in need of immovable property the problem can be decided by establishing easements, "neighbor's rights" without terminating property rights or ownership. Requisitions can be approved only in exceptional cases when the state of emergency is declared, and nationalization should be abandoned.

The article substantiates provisions concerning the fact that termination of the Eurasian Community does not mean a complete decriminalization and declaring illegal commodity smuggling and limited in circulation commodities smuggling; not every act that is included into the concept of drug trafficking must be cumulatively qualified. For this purpose the theory of transferring vital phenomena to the rule of criminal law according to which the definition of the concept is mainly contained in the chain of "a word - a term - a concept - a definition of a term" as it reflects the essence of a crime. The author shows the conversion of the regulatory legislation of the Eurasian Economic Community in the legislation of the Eurasian Economic Union according to which the regulatory foundations of the Eurasian Economic Community has been transformed into the regulatory foundations of the Eurasian Economic Union. the EAEU. Due to this, the definition of some concepts when they are given a different indication (words, terms) remains the same. The definition of other terms has changed. For the third group, both have changed. The opportunity to alter a criminal law prohibition by means of amending regulatory acts is recognized by the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation, generally recognized principles and norms of international law, in the legal literature; this is justified by inter-branch relations of the criminal law, systematic interpretation of criminal law rules. To this end, the rules in the dispositions of which it is pointed out at moving through customs border of the EurAsEC (Art. 194 of the CC of the RF, with regard to separate lost objects - articles 226, 229) should be interpreted as moving across the customs border of. through customs border of the EurAsEC. However, a lot of problems need to be solved. The article contains some proposals concerning how to solve them. The provision in the dispositions of articles providing for a crime the State Border of the Russian Federation and is caused by the fact that Russian Federation has already signed international treaties (other regulatory legislation). Possession, storage, and transport, transfer of one consignment to the border and its transfer over the border form a single crime that is consummated since achieving the final purpose: to consume, to dispose off, etc.., that is why they do not need cumulative qualifications.

The article deals with the classification of conspiracy according to its forms and types as well as it criminal legal meaning. The author considers the main standpoints on the issues of conspiracy classification developed in the science of criminal law. The paper elicits criteria used within the doctrine and in the judicial practice for classifying conspiracy according to its forms. It also formulates the definitions of "forms of conspiracy ". The author researches the norms of the concept of conspiracy according to the Russian legislation and suggests his own classification according to forms and types of all possible participation in a crime. There are five forms of conspiracy as stated by the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation: 1) conspiracy with roles allocation; 2) group of persons; 3) group of persons by prior collusion; 4) organized group; 5) criminal society (criminal organization). Ten types of conspiracy enshrined in the Special part of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation are also outlined. There are five types of organized group: 1) terrorist organization (art. 2055 Criminal Code of the Russian Federation); 2) illigal armed group (art. 208 Criminal Code of the Russian Federation); 3) gang (art. 209 Criminal Code of the Russian Federation); 4) non-profit organization offending a person and citizens rights (art. 239 Criminal Code of the Russian Federation); 5) extremist organization (art. 2822 Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). The five types of criminal society are: 1) terrorist society (art. 2054 Criminal Code of the Russian Federation); 2) structured organized group (part 1 art. 210 Criminal Code of the Russian Federation); 3) association of organized groups (part 1 art. 210 Criminal Code of the Russian Federation); 4) gathering of organizers, heads (leaders) or any other representatives of organized groups (part 1 art. 210 Criminal Code of the Russian Federation); 5) extremist association (art. 2821 Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). The author considers the norms of criminal law, related to classification of conspiracy, and judicial practice of their application. The article also researches the interpretations of courts of higher instance related to imposition of punishment in conspiracy cases. The conducted analysis covers the meaning of the author's classification for the criminal and legal assessment of a crime, including classification of crimes committed by conspiracy, and for imposition of punishment for crimes committed by conspiracy. The author suggests some changes into the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation which aim at clarifying the classification of group crimes. Some suggestions on improvement of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation commentaries related to interpretation of norms for imposition of punishment for group crimes are made in order to provide just individualization of accomplices punishment.

In the early twentieth century British colonial authorities continued their efforts to decentralize the governance and financial system of British India by providing greater administrative and financial authority to provincial governments, which required delineation of powers and the financing of the government of British India and the provincial governments. Governor-General of India, Lord Curzon tried to escape the disadvantages of the "Ripon scheme" and introduced a scheme of "quasi-permanent nature", based on three principles. The basic idea of the scheme was to raise the interest of the provinces to increasing of their income. The lack of success of the reforms led to the establishing by Edward VII in September 1907 of "Royal Commission on Decentralization of India", which was to examine the situation on the ground and then to make suggestions. In February 1909 the Commission submitted a report, which laid out the arguments both in favor of centralization of governance and in favor of decentralization. In order to enhance the decentralization they proposed measures for increasing of the powers of provincial governments and authorities subordinate to administrative units, governance of public services on a wide range of issues, primarily "provincial" and "subordinate" parts of the Indian Civil Service, the police, as well as medical, sanitation and so on. Particular emphasis was placed on the need to develop local government throughout India, particularly in rural areas. The most important role among them was assigned to panchayati. They envisaged the establishment of self-government at the district level and at the lowest level - a village or a group of villages. Accordingly, the proposed redistribution of competences between different levels of government and self-government. To implement the changes, the commission recommended to redistribute sources of financing government bodies at each level and discussed specific taxes thoroughly enough. They also mentioned some situations when the income did not cover the costs of provinces, districts and villages. The report revealed the need for changes in the cost structure of different levels of authorities. The article suggests some measures for implementation of recommendations of the Commission, the assessment of its activities by a number of researchers and sources, and makes a brief conclusion.

The European Court of Justice, created in the early 1950s, has significantly expanded its powers. The main factor in the expansion of European law was national courts addressing the European Court of Justice for interpretations (in 19932009 saw from 200 to 300 prejudicial inquiries per year; the number has risen up to 400 and even exceeded this figure since 2010, which is not that much for three dozens of member states). The court recognized the emergence of the European legal system in the 1960s. (Case Van Gend en Loos v. Nederlandse Administratie der Belastingen; Costa v. ENEL; International Handelsgesellschaft). It approved the principle of free movement of goods and services in 1970. Such court decisions as "Dassonvill","Cassis de Dijon","Omega" became quite well-known. In the 1990s, the Court paid even more attention to humanitarian issues. However, not all the decisions of judicial authority are public oriented. Basically, they do not count the state's interests in two types of cases: 1) associated with the intervention of the Member States jurisdiction under the pretext of protection of the fundamental principles of European law, and 2) relating to the interpretation of the expansion of the European Union citizenship. These spheres of life are particularly controversial for certain countries, national budgets and the sovereignty (potentially troublesome in the future as an artificially stimulating immigration is the case of Gerardo Riuz Zambrano v. Office national de l'emploi). The same are the cases of labor disputes that undermine trade union rights (pay attention to the Viking Line case; Laval). Sometimes, certain states, politicians and lawyers angered by the judicial expansion. National courts rarely show open discontent of the European Court, but apparently refrain from making prejudicial questions en masse. Public opinion in Europe shows less and less confidence in the European Court of Justice. This is especially true for Greece, Spain, Italy, Portugal, the UK, Cyprus (confidence level is only about 30-35% or less).

In Russia and China, declaration of property is an important link in the fight against corruption. However, based on different political systems, different economic bases, the historical culture and the social environment, the countries formed various structures. Search for similarities in the declaration of property of these states, the analysis of the differences in their use of positive experiences to date are of high importance. The course of development of the Chinese system of property declaration should be such that evolves from the inner-into national legislation. The system model should move from single mode control within the system towards a multi-mode outdoor public administration, its functional purpose of the system must be transformed from the detection of corruption elements into the prevention of conflicts of interest. The logic of a system of values should become the only requirement of the restrictions in the declaration of a balanced combination of binding commitments and legal assistance.

The article is devoted to the sociological study of repeated violent crime. Development of repeated violent crime into an independent type of recidivism is based on a specific characteristic of the subject of the crime - commission of a crime for which the criminal was subject to the measures of state influence. Therefore, it seems appropriate to conduct criminological research of repeated violent crime in terms of criminal personality. The category of persons subjected to the study includes the convicts serving their second sentence in prison. Using specially developed programs the author conducted gathering, summarizing and analysis of information taken from the personal files of 13 850 convicts (13 659 men and 191 women), as well as a questionnaire survey of 953 convicts (800 men and 153 women), and the analysis of the acquired data. The article presents the main results of the study, which laid the basis of criminological characteristics of repeated violent crimes. 44,7 % of men committed repeated violent crimes for pecuniary gain, 12,6 % - in order to protect their life and health, 10,6 % - for revenge, 7,1 % - jealousy and so on. Only 16% of women committed repeated violent crimes for pecuniary gain, 46,9 % - protection of life and health, 11.1% - for revenge, 11,1 % - jealousy and the like.

The article analyses the main doctrinal statements on "negligent joint infliction". The study of this issue allowed the authors to argue that the concept of "negligent complicity" does not coincide with the concept of "negligent joint infliction"; the difference between the two is that roles allocation is possible in case of negligent complicity when the actions of some accomplices do not lead to the direct infliction of harm, but create the conditions for such and, accordingly, is in a causal and guilt connection. Negligent joint infliction characterizes the situation of joint participation in a negligent crime, i.e. it occurs in committing a negligent crime, in which the actions of each of the co-actors possess common crime components. This conclusion is based on the analysis of monographs studied on this issue. In the framework of criminal law, the reform the Federal Law of February 3, 2014 № 15-FZ, art. 263.1 of the Criminal Code was set out in the new edition (entered into force on 5 June 2014). Directions in Part 3 and 4 of Art. 2631 of the Criminal Code on the commission of the crime by a group of persons by prior conspiracy and an organized group, in the opinion of the authors, should be excluded from the Criminal Code as being contrary to Art. 32 of the Criminal Code. When designing the criminal law final social effect, which the society and state are going to achieve as a result of the directed impact on social processes, should be taken into consideration. In an effort to achieve the goal the legislator does not always pay attention to detail, take into account the fact that all the institutions of law, all the rules that form these institutions are closely connected with each other; therefore, changes to the criminal law should be made with due regard to the already functioning system. Based on the legislative definition of complicity in a crime the authors state that complicity in a negligent crime is not possible.

Crime committed by mafia-style criminal gangs is a new category of crime that introduced by the revised Criminal Law in 1997 in China. Three types of "crimes committed by mafia-style criminal gangs" were mentioned in it, namely, crimes of organizing, leading and participating in the mafia-style criminal gangs, crimes of recruiting members of mafia-style criminal gangs by entering the border of China, and crimes of harboring and conniving the mafia-style criminal gangs. However, the definition of the crime committed by mafia-style criminal gangs has long been a controversy either in practice or in theory research since the operation of revised Criminal Law in 1997, notwithstanding the legislature and the judiciary have published a serials of interpretations and criminal amendments about it shortly after 1997. Due to the particularity of this crime, its concept has never been satisfactorily defined. To avoid confusion, it is important to research intensively about the definition of crimes committed by mafia-style criminal gangs, either for applying laws accurately in judicial practice, or for improving and perfecting relevant legislations in the filed of mafia-style criminal gangs. This article makes a theoretical research and practical analysis on the definition of crimes committed by mafia-style criminal gangs, four aspects of features are discussed: organizational feature; economic feature; behavioral feature and feature of illegal control. Borrowing this way of feature division, further analysis will make on Amendment (VIII) to the Criminal Law of China. It will have significant and realistic meanings on the exact application of laws in judicial practice.

The review provides a detailed analysis of the draft Resolution of the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation "On judicial practice of applying legislation on disciplinary liability of judges", identifies the main tasks assigned to the creation of the project, and studies the general orientation and specificity. The author considers the purpose of creation, which is to protect the rights and legitimate interests of the judge in case of violation by being subjected to disciplinary action, highlights the strong and weak aspects of the project, evaluates legal technique, and explores the conceptual apparatus and the language used to create the project provisions. The paper shows the shortcomings of this draft resolution; moreover, it marks both system ones and of private nature, existing in the framework of single provisions of the draft; and finally it offers various ways to eliminate them. Draft Resolution of the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation "On judicial practice of applying legislation on disciplinary responsibility of judges" aims at replacing the decision of the Plenum of the Supreme Court dated 31 May 2007 № 27 (in the red. May 20, 2010), so the review carries out their comparative analysis.

The review covers the materials of the round table, held on March 9, 2016 at the Academy of the Investigative Committee of Russia, where the discussion of the monographs by Professor I.M. Rahimov "Crime and Punishment" (Moscow, 2012), "The philosophy of crime and punishment" (St. Petersburg, 2015), "On the moral of punishment" (St. Petersburg, 2016) took place. However, the conversation was not limited only to the analysis of these studies, and went far beyond the publications, which is understandable due to the significance of the problem. For several centuries, scientists have struggled to resolve a number of issues: the right of punishment, the nature and content of penalties, goals and functions of punishment, their means of implementation, etc. Therefore, a discussion on many issues has turned out sharp, obviously staying within the frames of scientific debate. The roundtable was attended by deputies of the State Duma of the Russian Federation, well-known scientists from Moscow, St. Petersburg, Vladivostok, Yelets, Omsk and other Russian cities, as well as representatives of the scientific community of Azerbaijan. The roundtable was opened by A.M. Bagmet, Acting Rector of the Academy of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation, PhD in Law, Major-General of Justice. A.I. Bastrykin, Chairman of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation, Doctor of Law, Justice General. presented his opening speech.

The review considers the monograph "On moral of punishment" by I.M. Rahimov. In this paper the author analyzes in-depth the problems related to the moral foundations of the origin of punishment, the moral principles of punishment, conditions ensuring the moral principles of punishment. The issues of the relation of religion to the punishment are quite rare in modern studies. The appeal to this aspect is one of the advantages of the book. One of the main questions which the author tries to answer is whether to apply the penalty or to prefer giving exposure to non-punitive alternative measures? The author also considers the issues concerning the effectiveness of punishment and provides interesting arguments on fairness of punishment. One of the sections of the monograph is devoted to such a complex and controversial issue as the moral of capital punishment. Noteworthy is the fact that the monograph ends with "theoretical and practical recommendations to a legislator," which reflects not only the theoretical but also practical significance of this study. The monograph stands out from other rather numerous in recent years' research papers on the problems of punishment as it shows deep study of the problems, the analysis of all or at least most of the standpoints on a particular discussion question. The great merit of the author is that he was able to assemble a very extensive empirical and statistical data.