Back to the Legal Middle Ages?

ABSTRACT

Russia initiated the creation of the Eurasian Economic Union and the shaping the all-encompassing Greater Eurasian Partnership. For these geopolitical projects to successfully move forward, Russia must place its bets on using the toolkit of international law, while encouraging the development of regional and transregional integrational law and the systemwide modernization of its own domestic legal system. Accordingly, it is in Russia’s interests to preserve a vitally important quality of its legal system—openness to international and supranational law—as well as to strengthen and defend international law and refute all accusations that international law is ineffective or has even already collapsed. All theoretical constructs and statements about how international law is at the brink of a profound crisis contradict objective truth and common sense. They were only needed in order to untie various actors’ hands in international affairs. In actuality, adherence to international law is as necessary as ever. Without it, decent international cooperation cannot be restored, peaceful coexistence and solutions to global problems cannot be provided, and development for all cannot be achieved. It is vital to understand that it is in fact international law and supranational law that are the genuine law, while national law, on the contrary, often merely legitimizes lawlessness and barbarity. Prominent Russian legal scholars were writing about this at length and with authority in the early 20th century. Furthermore, today international law is only one part of the global regulatory system.

Notes

1. See “Vystuplenie i otvety na voprosy SMI Ministra inostrannykh del Rossii S.V. Lavrova v khode press-konferentsii po itogam deiatel’nosti rossiiskoi diplomatii v 2017 g., g. Moskva, 15 ianvaria 2018.” Available at http://www.mid.ru/foreign_policy/news/-/asset_publisher/cKNonkJE02Bw/content/id/3018203.

2. Kortunov, “Rossiia i Evropeiskii Soiuz: chetyre sstenariia na budushchee.” Available at http://russiancouncil.ru/analytics-and-comments/analytics/rossiya-i-evropeyskiy-coyuz-chetyre-stsenariya-na-budushchee.

3. All of these topics have been discussed in great detail at every recent Annual Convention of the Russian Association of International Law, including at the January 29–31, 2018, convention held in Moscow.

4. In particular, Art. 15, Pt. 4 of the Russian Constitution stipulates: “The universally accepted principles and norms of international law and the Russian Federation’s international agreements are an integral part of its legal system.”

5. See Tolstykh, Kurs mezhdunarodnogo prava: uchebnik. Moscow, 2010.

6. Which prevented the formation of a unipolar world, which, despite universal confusion, never existed. See Entin and Entina, “Mezhdunarodnoe pravo v epokhu peremen”//Sovremennoe mezhdunarodnoe pravo: globalizatsiia i integratsiia: LIBER AMICORUM in honor of Professor P.N. Biryukov: collection of scholarly articles. Voronezh, 2016, pp. 216–37.

7. “Standard & Poor’s confirms Luxembourg’s ‘AAA’ rating with stable outlook. On 15 September 2017, the rating agency Standard & Poor’s (S&P) once again confirmed Luxembourg’s ‘AAA’ credit rating and assigned the country a stable outlook.” The official portal of the Grand Duchy, September 15, 2017. Available at http://www.luxembourg.public.lu/en/actualites/2017/09/18-aaa/index.html.

8. Therefore, as of January and February 2018, the rate of return on Russian federal bonds was 7.4% annually. It is at about the same level for government bonds from Mexico, India, Jordan, and Bangladesh. For understandable reasons, it is higher in Pakistan (8.5%), South Africa (8.6%), and Brazil (9.8%). In contrast, ten-year United States government bonds get a rate of return of only 2.7%. In Italy they earn 2.1%, in Spain 1.4%, and British bonds earn 1.5%. Finally, in the most reliable countries it quickly approaches zero: 0.1% in Japan and 0.02% in Germany (see Komrakov, “Minfin predpochitaet ne videt’ budushchikh riskov”//Nezavisimaia gazeta, Jan. 30, 2018, p. 4).

9. At the same time, the international bodies that exert control at the planetary level are enhanced by regional mechanisms that are no less effective. See, for example, regional FATF-style groups like the Eurasian group on combating money laundering and financing of terrorism. Available at http://www.eurasiangroup.org/ru/eag/regional_bodies.php.

10. Usually named among the most prominent representatives of legal statism of the late 19th and early 20th centuries are legal theorists such as Jeremy Bentham, John Austin, Paul Laband, K. Berg, and others.

11. See Polyakov and Timoshina, Obshchaia teoriia prava: Uchebnik. 2nd ed. St. Petersburg, 2017.

12. See Evropeiskoe pravo. Osnovy integratsionnogo prava Evropeiskogo Soiuza i Evraziiskogo ekonomicheskogo soiuza: uchebnik. Moscow, 2018.

13. See Entin, Mezhdunarodnye garantii prav cheloveka: opyt Soveta Evropy. Moscow, 1997.

14. On one of the hundreds of alternative reports, see Johnston,

15. It was organized in 2014, then again in 2016 taking into account the new ideas and suggestions which had been rolled out earlier — European Commission Launches Public Consultation on a Multilateral Reform of Investment Dispute Resolution. European Commission news archive. Investment. Brussels, 2016. December 21. Avaiable at http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/press/index.cfm?id=1610.

16. The Multilateral Investment Court project. Since 2015 the European Commission has been working to establish a Multilateral Investment Court. European Commission news archive. Dispute settlement. 2017. October 20. Available at http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/press/index.cfm?id=1608.

17. Judgment of the Court (Grand Chamber) delivered on September 3, 2008 in Joined Cases C-402/05 P and C-415/05 P Yassin Abdullah Kadi and Al Barakaat International Foundation v Council of the European Union and the Commission of the European. Available at http://cdre.eu/72-documentation-en-ligne/justice/jurisprudence/1066-cjue-3-September-2008-aff-c-402-05-p-et-c-415-05-p-yassin-abdullah-kadi-et-al-barakaatinternational-foundation-c-council-of-the-european-union-and-commission-ofEuropean-communities.

18. Entin, “Ustanovlenie kosvennoi iurisdiktsii Suda ES nad rezoliutsiiami Soveta Bezopasnosti OON”//Internet journal Vsia evropa, 2009, no. 9. Available at http://alleruoplalux.org/?p=2502.

19. For a contrary opinion about how thanks to the EU Court of Justice’s ruling on the Kadi case the EU not only failed to wall itself off from international law but instead helped it along, see Krenzler and Landwehr, “‘A New Legal Order of International Law’: On the Relationship between Public International Law and European Union Law after Kadi”/U. Fastenrath, R. Geiger, D.-E. Khan (eds.). From Bilateralism to Community Interest: Essays in Honour of Bruno Simma. Oxford, 2011.

20. Which is explained in the clearest, most accessible language possible, even on popular websites for beginning lawyers. See, for example, Ahmeti, “Privatization of warfare as a new challenge for International Law”//International association for political science students. September 29, 2014. Available at https://www.iapss.org/wp/2014/09/29/privatization-of-warfare-as-a-new-challenge-for-international-law.

21. Privatization of War. The Montreux Document on Pertinent International Legal Obligations and Good Practices for States Related to Operations of Private Military and Security Companies During Armed Conflict. Available at https://www.icrc.org/en/publication/0996-montreux-document-private-military-andsecurity-companies.

22. Stephan, Privatizing International Law//Virginia Law and Economics Research Paper No. 2011-02. March 7, 2011. Available at https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1780468.

23. See Mason, “International Growth Trends in Prison Privatization.” The Sentencing Project, August 2013. Available at https://www.sentencingproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/International-Growth-Trends-in-Prison-Privatization.pdf.

24. See Tikhomirov, “Samoregulirovanie: sposoby i granitsy pravovogo regulirovaniia.” Report at the 8th International Academic Conference “Economic Modernization and Community Development” (Moscow, April 3–5, 2007). Available at https://www.hse.ru/data/799/776/1238/Tihomirov.doc; Privalov, “Poslednii shans dlia samoregulirovaniia. V iiule Prezident RF podpisal zakon, reformiruiushchii sistemu samoregulirovaniia v stroitel’stve”//Kommersant.ru, Jan. 24, 2017. Available at https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/3057662.

25. See the rulings by the Plenum of the Russian Supreme Court “On the Introduction in the State Duma of the Russian Federation Federal Assembly of a Bill on Amending Individual Legislative Acts of the Russian Federation to Improve Reconciliation Procedures,” “On the Introduction in the State Duma of the Russian Federation Federal Assembly of a Draft Constitutional Law on Amending the Federal Constitutional Law on the Russian Federation Supreme Court, the Federal Constitutional Law on Courts of General Jurisdiction in the Russian Federation and the Federal Constitutional Law on Commercial Courts in the Russian Federation to Improve Reconciliation Procedures,” and “On the Introduction in the State Duma of the Russian Federation Federal Assembly of a Federal Bill on Amending Part Two of the Russian Federation Tax Code to Improve Reconciliation Procedures.”

26. See Valeev, “Istoricheskaia rol’ Rossii v provedenii Gaagskikh konferentsii mira”//Istoriia gosudarstva i prava. 2009, no. 12.

27. See Voronin, “Russkaia shkola prava professora F.F. Martensa i sovremennoe mezhdunarodnoe pravo. K 170-letiiu so dnia rozhdeniia”//Mezhdunarodnaia zhizn’. 2015, no. 10. Available at https://interaffairs.ru/jauthor/material/1393

28. See Gurvich, Filosofiia i sotsiologiia prava: Izbrannye sochinennia/trans. M.V. Antonov and L.V. Voronina. St. Petersburg, 2004.

29. See Taube, Vechnyi mir ili vechnaia voina? (Mysli o Lige Natsii). Berlin, 1922. pp. 15, 27–28.

30. Gurvich, Vvedenie v obshchuiu teoriiu mezhdunarodnogo prava: konspekt lektsii. Vyp. 1. Prague, 1923. p. 102.

31. See Dewan, “Russia Sanctions: What You Need to Know//CNN. August 2, 2017. Available at http://edition.cnn.com/2017/07/25/europe/russia-sanctions-explainer/index.html.