Law in Eastern Europe – serie

Winner of the Hart/Socio-Legal Studies Association Book Prize for Early Career Academics, 2005.This book traces the development of the rule of law in Georgia since its independence and speculates on its future direction. It does so by focusing on changes in the legal profession after 1991. Intriguingly, the book, which is based on extensive field-work, concludes that culture and informal regulation are key to understanding how Georgian lawyers are governed, or rather govern themselves. Indeed, for several years after independence from the Soviet Union there was no functioning law on attorneys; informal regulation, based on the importance of reputation and networks, was the only sort of regulation. Other topics addressed in the book include Georgia’s legal history, its current human rights situation, theories of professionalization, and the link between law and development. The book also compares the Georgian experience to that country’s South Caucasian neighbors - Armenia and Azerbaijan - thus rounding the book out as a regional study.

The chapters in this volume are from two Leiden conferences. There, distinguished scholars and practitioners from Russia and the Far Abroad measured the winds of change in the field of private law in post-Soviet Russia: enormous differences from the Soviet period, crucial in supporting post-Soviet changes toward freedom of choice in the marketplaces of goods, services, ideas and political institutions. This volume will enable the reader to further chart the progress made in Russia (and the region) in the revitalization of private and civil law—and its impact upon practice and comparative legal studies—and to appreciate the role which the distinction between the public and private sectors is seen as playing in the process.

The Constitution of the Russian Federation was ratified in 1993 amid great hopes and aspirations following the collapse of the USSR. The constitution proclaims the goal of establishing a “democratic, federal state” that functions according to rule of law and promises a broad array of social, political and economic rights to its citizens. But how well has the Russian government lived up to realizing these promises? Seven distinguished scholars on Russian politics and law examine the state of political accountability, federal power-sharing, judicial independence, press freedom, and criminal procedure in Russia today. The picture that emerges is decidedly mixed; they conclude that the Russian constitution remains a work in progress.

Much of what we know about the colourful Russian middle ages comes from legal sources: the treaties of Russian-Scandinavian warlords with the Byzantine emperors, the gradual penetration of Christianity and Byzantine institutions, the endless game of war and peace among the numerous regional princes, the activities of Hanseatic merchants in the wealthy city-republic of Novgorod, the curious relationships between the Mongol conquerors and Russian rulers and church dignitaries, etc. And, at the even further fringes of medieval Europe, there were the Christian kingdoms of Armenia and Georgia, squeezed between the Islamic empires of Iran and Turkey, but each possessing their elaborate and original legal systems. A discussion of more general questions of legal history and legal anthropology precedes the treatment of these various topics.

One of the most widespread problems in post-Communist countries is the quality of the judiciary. The book argues that these problems are intimately linked to the legal culture of Communist law, that an understanding of post-Communist judges necessarily requires an understanding of their Communist predecessors. There seems to be a deep continuity in the methods of legal reasoning employed by lawyers in the region of East Central Europe, starting in the era of Stalinism of the 1950s up to the current post-Communist period, which continuity is manifested in the problems of 1990s and 2000s. Communist legal culture and its aftermath provide an interesting analysis of the development of legal culture in a long-lasting system which was intellectually almost completely separated from the outside world. The book targets the judicial ideology, the conception of law, and the judicial self-perceptions, which are phenomena most likely to be contained in the deepest level of legal culture, that most resistant to change.

Electricity supply plays a strategic role for Russia’s economic development and for social peace. As a main consumer of natural gas, electricity is also of central importance for the efficient management of Russia’s energy resource basis. Today, however, the electricity sector is in an obsolete condition. Investments are needed in the modernization of the infrastructure. This book analyzes the liberalization and privatization program that Russia is implementing to attract private investments in this modernization process. Taking a comparative approach, this analysis critically assesses Russian electricity law in the light of the European liberalization experience. Given the strategic importance of electricity, investors face significant risks of government intervention. This book identifies these regulatory risks and examines investment protection mechanisms under Russia’s national and international investment obligations.

In Russia and European Human-Rights Law: The Rise of the Civilizational Argument, Lauri Mälksoo and his co-authors critically examine Russia's experiences as part of the European human-rights protection system since its admittance to the Council of Europe in 1998. The authors combine legal and constructivist international-relations theory perspectives in studying Russia's practice and rhetoric as a member of the Council of Europe and a subject to the jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights. Certain aspects of human-rights doctrine and practice in Russia are particularly highlighted: the increasing impact of Orthodox Christian teachings on the Russian government's ideology, the situation with media freedom, freedom of religion, etc. The authors draw widely on Russian sources and media. The questions whether modern-day Russia truly fits in the human-rights protection system of the Council of Europe, and whether a margin of appreciation will suffice when dealing with Moscow, are highly relevant in contemporary European politics.

Given their relationship to political rhetoric, myths of the Cold War certainly matter today; the legal field is no exception. Although Cold-War studies remains a blooming field, its legal dimensions have not been sufficiently developed. Only recently have legal scholars begun to embark upon research in law and the Cold War and how this area is regarded nowadays, both explicitly and implicitly. Preliminary results show that, on both sides of the Iron Curtain, knowledge of law of the ‘Other’ was encapsulated within two main frameworks: ideological and pragmatic. How did these approaches interrelate and influence one another? Can pure knowledge strictly be divided from contextual conditions? The chapters in this volume present retrospective accounts of actors who have been involved in the circulation of knowledge through the Curtain and, also, research on recent political and legal phenomena echoing the Cold-War discourse.Contributors: Jane Henderson, Albert J. Schmidt, Zlata E. Benevolenskaya, Leena Lehtinen, Boris N. Mamlyuk, William Partlett, Paul B. Stephan

The year 2017 has been an uneasy one for the EU, with so-called Brexit on the horizon and the rise of populist euroskepticism in a number of Member States. This year, with the tenth anniversary of the Romanian and Bulgarian accession to the Union, is a good year to pause and reflect over the life and future of the Union. In this work, we envision the next decade with Europe 2020 strategy and review the fruits of the 2004 accession in Central and Eastern Europe. What has the Union achieved? Which policy areas are likely to change and how? How successful, and by what measure, has the accession of the 10 Member States in 2004 been? Reviewing European Union Accession addresses a wide range of issues, deliberately without any thematic constraints, in order to explore EU enlargement from a variety of perspectives, both scientific and geographical, internal and external. In contrast to the major works in this field, we highlight the interrelated, and often unexpected, nature of the integration process – hence the subtitle, unexpected results, spillover effects and externalities.

This book provides a concise and analytical introduction to private international law in Hungary: international jurisdiction of courts, choice of law (applicable law) and the recognition and enforcement of foreign judicial decisions. It presents both Hungarian conflicts rules and their judicial practice and the application of EU conflicts rules by Hungarian courts.

In 1968, the predecessor of this volume was published as Number 15 of the Law in Eastern Europe series, under the title "Soviet Citizenship Law". The decision to put out a new version of that study was prompted by the enactment in 1978 of the CUTTent Law on the Citizenship of the USSR and the various changes in Soviet prac­ tice in this domain which occurred in the intervening decade. I have drawn on the earlier work for background material and in order to make comparisons between the previous record here and the substance ofthe latest statute. However, the pres­ ent monograph is not a second edition in the sense of being an expanded and updated revision of the original, but stands as an independent piece of research and analysis. Thus, three of the chapters (out of a total of six) featured in the 1968 vol­ urne - citizenship and state succession, state succession and option of nationality, and refugees and displaced persons - have now been omitted for the simple reason that the situation in these areas has remained virtually static during the past ten years so that the initial treatment requires no significant alteration. On the other hand, fresh problems have meantime arisen - such as, for instance, the connection between citizenship and emigration, and the relationship between citizenship status and the international protection of human rights - which called for attention and are dealt with in this book.