Russia Outside the Security System

This article considers the reasons for and likely trajectory of the confrontation with the West that the Russian government began abruptly in 2014. While Russia's leadership quickly recognized that its confrontational strategy in Ukraine was a strategic mistake, it could not reverse course. As it has continued to escalate the confrontation, it has become hostage to an aggressive policy that cannot end successfully for Russia.     

Ukrainian-Russian Relations—European and Eurasian Contexts

In terms of civilization and culture, Ukraine is both a European and a Eurasian state with priorities—Russia and the West—determined by foreign and by domestic factors. Ukraine's unnatural, contradictory, and dual-vectored foreign policy, the object of bitter discussion and criticism for several years, is influenced by complex patterns of postcommunist reforms that are creating a new geopolitical reality and by the impact on it of two different regions—Greater Europe and Eastern Europe. Russia's special role in these processes is obvious. The foreign policy of the two states and Ukrainian-Russian relations largely determine both the nature and the pace of change in the eastern part of the continent, as well as the chances of achieving stability and optimal conditions for cooperation throughout Europe.     

Modernizing Russian Foreign Policy

The author argues that Russian foreign policy should focus not on enhancing Russia's status as a great power but on tapping external resources to facilitate the country's modernization. This means relying on instruments of "soft power" and seeking to integrate with the European Union (EU). It also means promoting a new vision of European security in place of the remnants of the cold war.     

Russian Political Parties and Movements on Contemporary World Processes

Most of the platforms of Russian political parties and movements devote rather poor coverage to issues related to globalization, Russia's place in the contemporary system of international relations, and Russian foreign policy. More complete are the sections on foreign policy in the platforms of the former Fatherland [Otechestvo] Party and the Liberal-Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR). The Yabloko party platform gives especially short shrift to such issues. In essence, foreign policy gets less than a page, in a section itself entitled "Foreign Security and the Army." As brief and even more declarative were the foreign policy statements of Unity [Edinstvo] (before its merger with Fatherland—All Russia [Otechestvo—Vsia Rossiia]).     

Foreign agents or agents of justice? Private foundations,backlash against non-governmental organizations,and international human rights litigation

The premise of Russia's 2012 “Foreign Agents” Law, one of the first such laws restricting foreign funding for non-governmental organizations (NGOs), is that foreign monies equal foreign agendas. Since then, over 50 countries have adopted similar laws using a similar justification. This paper interrogates this claim of foreign donor influence through examining legal mobilization by human rights NGOs at the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). We track donor support for litigation by providing an overview of all foundation grant flows relating to strategic litigation for 2013–2014, and then matching the granting activities of two major U.S. foundations over 14 years to human rights NGO participation in cases before the ECtHR. Further, through case studies of Russian NGOs, we assess the causal role that donor support has played in facilitating their increased involvement in ECtHR litigation. The combined analysis indicates broad patterns of private foundation support to litigating NGOs, but uncovers no evidence that foreign donors were “pushing” NGOs toward litigation as a strategy, but instead more evidence suggesting that NGOs convinced donors to support human rights litigation. Despite the inaccuracy of the justification underpinning Russia's foreign agent law, the law threatens the survival of human rights organizations.     

Law Sidelined

This article discusses how the rule of law is understood in present-day Russia, highlighting the distinction between rule of law and rule by law. It highlights how both international and Russian legal norms were subverted in the Russian Constitutional Court's ruling on the legitimacy of the treaty that authorized Russia's annexation of Crimea.

On the question of the rule of law in the context of Russian foreign policy, or why, according to the law of the Russian Federation, Crimea is nonetheless not altogether ours.     

Russia: From Energy Villain to Environmental Hero?

Global development of unconventional natural gas sources using hydraulic fracturing techniques has intensified energy security issues and environmental concerns, including freshwater contamination and climate change. Russian energy policy and its natural gas monopoly, Gazprom, have shaped European energy concerns. The discussion presents the goals of the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT) as a response. It describes Russia's controversial involvement in the ECT process and examines the United States’ role as a worldwide model for shale development. This article finds that Russia's ratification of the ECT presents a good solution for environmental and trade relations problems that Russia and European countries face today.     

Bad but Stable

Russia's fiscal system was destabilized in 2015 because of the fall in national oil revenues. The budget crisis resulted in a sustained fall in personal income, which in turn led to a fall in consumption. This in turn resulted in a decline in trade and investment. These trends were present in the majority of Russia's regions. Russia's industrial slump, on the other hand, was relatively small and did not last long, in large part due to continued investment and growth in the defense industry. The sustained industrial production, combined with the buffer of a substantial pool of foreign migrant labor, allowed for stable employment figures. Overall, the Russian economy was better able to adapt to the deterioration in conditions than most expected.     

Geopolitical Priorities in Russia's Regional Policies

State regional policies are generally based either on the goal of stimulating the development of specific regions or of equalizing the level of development among the regions. The first path is generally pursued by developing states while rich states favor the second path. Russia has in the past experimented with both vectors of regional policy. Since the annexation of Crimea, a third factor has come to dominate: geopolitics. The main goal of Russia's regional policy is securing control of geopolitically significant territories. The high expense of such a policy makes it unsustainable during a period of economic retrenchment.     

They Are Giving the Police Three Years

Russia's human rights ombudsman Vladimir Lukin and MVD representatives discuss foreign experience in police reform and new proposals to improve police work in Russia.     

The Log in Your Eye: Is Europe's External Promotion of Religious Freedom Consistent With its Internal Practice?

The commitment of the EU to the external promotion of the respect for human rights allegedly distinguishes its foreign policy from that of traditional powers. Yet there is the perception that EU's statements are not always consistent with internal practices. This article analyses one set of EU's inconsistencies that has not been sufficiently studied: the discrepancy between internal and external human rights standards. The article focuses on the promotion and protection of freedom of religion or belief, which has become a priority of the EU's foreign policy. It is submitted that the EU's external position generally reflects values common to the Member States, but is sometimes contradicted by the practice of domestic authorities. The human rights standards identified in the EU's foreign policy may arguably serve as a reference for legal reform and the interpretation of fundamental rights in Europe.     

"Anti-Westernism" as a Strategy: Distinctive Behaviors of the Contemporary Russian Elite

The authors analyze the content of anti-Russian rhetoric in the European Union (EU) as it pertains to Russian economic strategy, domestic policy, and foreign policy. They explain its causes mainly in terms of divergent economic interests and the EU's internal needs for identity and consolidation.     

A Design for Russia

Occupying as it does an intermediate position between East and West, Russia from time to time finds it necessary to reexamine its status as a civilized country: it perpetuates itself in history by changing its civilizational orientations—by searching for a new balance between Western and Eastern impulses. Any reform in Russia weakens the screws that "fasten" the country firmly to a specific point on the axis between East and West, thus creating the danger of destabilization. Most countries, both Eastern and Western, are part of more or less stable civilized systems: a cupola over them protects them from the chaos of history. Russia, however, is its own civilizational system, yet a more fragile and mobile one owing to its intermediate position. State power and civilizational fragility—such is the antinomy of Russia's destiny, something our social reformers frequently forget.     

The Current Status and Prospects of the 'Strategic Partnership' between the EU and China: Towards the Conclusion of a Partnership and Cooperation Agreement

Abstract: This article aims to evaluate legal aspects of the content and implementation of the ‘strategic partnership’ between the EU and the People's Republic of China. In the absence of a category of ‘emerging countries’ in international economic law, the Union must adapt its foreign policy with regard to this major economic and commercial power. Relations between the European Community and China are currently governed by a second‐generation agreement from 1985. However, a new dynamic has been set in motion since 2003, by the drawing up of preparatory documents by both parties and joint declarations at annual summits bearing on the ‘strategic partnership’. Seen in a long‐term perspective, this partnership helps provide a measure of predictability in relations between the two partners, through combining elements of ‘soft law’ and ‘hard law’. If the insertion of political dialogue into the strategic partnership seems to alter the coherence of the Union, notably with regard to the difficulties of implementing the dialogue on human rights, the added value of the partnership lies essentially in its economic and commercial aspects, through not only the putting into place of non‐binding ‘economic dialogues’ which cover a large spectrum of the relationship, but also by the multiplication of sector‐based accords in numerous areas (maritime transport, customs cooperation, etc.). This constant development has thus allowed parties, at the last annual summit, to envisage the conclusion of a new framework agreement: this is the origin of the mandate given to the Commission in December 2005 to conclude a partnership and cooperation agreement. This article will sketch out a forecast of the legal framework, measured against the yardsticks of Asiatic regional reconfigurations and the law of the World Trade Organisation (WTO). The commercial risks of the relationship could imply the integration of the domains known as ‘WTO plus’ into the future agreement, notably in the field of investments and intellectual property rights, which would introduce a greater variety into the agreement. That being the case, the negotiations risk being equally fragile at the political level, in particular concerning the insertion of a clause of democratic conditionality in the future agreement. Also, any clash between the values and the interests of the EU would be uncomfortably highlighted during negotiations.     

Special Characteristics of the Post-Soviet Political Regime

When the editors of Rossiiskaia gazeta asked me to write an article on Russia's future policy toward Asia, they did not catch me completely unawares. I have been thinking about this now extremely complicated problem for a long time. Here I attempt to share my preliminary conclusions. I am not sure that these conclusions are final, but we must initiate a discussion.     

Nuclear Deterrence and Proliferation: The Dialectics of "Doomsday Weapons"

The myth of Russia's "special path" can be viewed as a value operator or device for switching between modal planes of social reality and collective consciousness.     

EMU and the Shift in the European Labour Law Agenda: From ‘Social Policy’ to ‘Employment Policy’

This article examines the interaction between EMU and the European Union (EU) employment strategy and its implications for law. It focuses on the importance of EMU as a catalyst in the development of the EU's social and employment policy in the years following the Treaty on European Union in 1992, up to the inauguration of a new employment policy in the Treaty of Amsterdam. In analysing the EU's discourse on labour market regulation, it is arguable that a shift has occurred in the EU's position on the ‘labour market flexibility’ debate: that the EU institutions are more readily accepting of the orthodoxy that labour market regulation and labour market institutions are a major cause of unemployment within EU countries and that a deregulatory approach, which emphasises greater ‘flexibility’ in labour markets, is the key to solving Europe's unemployment ills, along with macroeconomic stability, restrictive fiscal policy and wage restraint. As the EU's employment strategy has matured, this increased emphasis on employment policy has come to displace discourses around social policy. This change in emphasis has important implications for EMU since it signals a re‐orientation from an approach to labour market regulation which had as its core a strong concept of employment protection and high labour standards, to an approach which prioritises employment creation, and minimises the role of social policy, since social policy is seen as potentially increasing the regulatory burden.     

Reforming Europe's Common Foreign and Security Policy

Abstract: The reform of the constitutional foundations of Europe's Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) featured prominently on the agenda of the European Convention. To the great surprise of many observers the much lamented absence of a common European response to the war in Iraq did not prevent the Convention from agreeing upon an ambitious reform package in the foreign‐policy field. This article explores the legal implications of the new institutional balance for European foreign policy envisaged by the Convention against the background of the achievements and deficiencies of Europe's existing foreign policy regime. Thereby, we shall see in how far the Convention has met the original goal set by the Laeken European Council to consider reform steps to strengthen the Union's ability to ‘shoulder its responsibilities in the governance of globalisation.’ 1     

Dilemmas of U.S. export control of technology to China [1]

Technology transfer from the U.S. and its allies to China is basically a combination of West-East and North-South characteristics. China's “unbalanced” development strategy for the past several decades has resulted in some technologically advanced military fields, like strategic nuclear forces, and a strikingly backward civilian sector. This uniqueness confounds U.S. decisions on export control of potential military technology to China, whereas western Europe and Japan can take full advantage of the economic opportunities beginning in the late 1970s. The U.S. relative disadvantage in economic terms as compared with its allies in dealing with China is hypothesized to be more serious than when dealing with the Soviet group. Meanwhile, the U.S. policy to ban some critical technologies to China may also be eroded by China's concerted efforts to get access to them and the informal channels rooted in the extensive Chinese network in the U.S. science and technology community.     

Evolution of the Russian Judicial System in 2014

After the mass protests that took place in 2011–12 and the annexation of Crimea in 2014, all of the negative tendencies that have existed in Russia's judicial system became more prominent, while the few positive tendencies have largely disappeared. Acquittal has become even rarer than it already was, even as the courts' tendency to hand down sentences short of incarceration has been reversed.