This book examines how traditional indigenous Russian legal values and the 74-year experience with communism and "socialist legality" are being combined with Western concepts of justice and due process to forge a new legal consciousness in Russia today.

Based on a set of papers prepared for a spring 1995 conference held at Massey College, University of Toronto, reflecting collaboration and discussion among specialists in law and justice in tsarist Russia and their counterparts working on the subject in the USSR and post-Soviet Russia. Organized in sections on varieties of justice in imperial Russia, courts and Soviet power, and justice and the Russian transition, papers examine areas such as rural arson in European Russia in the late imperial era, sexual harassment claims of the 1920s, criminal justice under Stalin, and trials in modern Russia. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Measuring Russian legal reform in relation to the rule-of-law ideal, this study also examines the legal institutions, culture and reform goals that have actually prevailed in Russia. Judgements about future prospects are measured, adding new dimensions to our understanding of the Soviet legacy.

The contributors to this volume - all specialists on Soviet law and politics - offer a comprehensive examination of the effort to create a "law-based" state in the Gorbachev-era U.S.S.R., thus effecting a fundamental change in the relationship between the state and private groups and individuals. Gianmaria Ajani, Donald Barry, Harold Berman, Frances Foster-Simons, George Ginsburgs, John Hazard, Kathryn Hendley, Eugene Huskey, Dietrich Loeber, Peter Maggs, Hiroshi Oda, Nicolai Petro, Robert Sharlet, Louise Shelley, Will Simons and Peter Solomon, with commentary by Soviet scholars, discuss conceptual, historical, social, cultural, and institutional aspects of Soviet legal development, and supply detailed analysis of recent developments in the areas of civil, criminal, and labour law and the rights of individuals, economic organizations, and political and social groups.

This book paints a portrait of the courts of the Russian Federation under Putin. It stresses the dual nature of a judicial system where ordinary cases are handled fairly, but where cases of interest to powerful persons are subject to influence. A must read for those with an interest in Russia's judicial systems.

This collection of essays examines how Russia's distinctive traditions of law-and lawlessness-are shaping the current struggle for economic reform in the country.

This addition to the Elements of International Law series explores the role of international law as an integral part of the Russian legal system, with particular reference to the role of international treaties and of generally-recognized principles and norms of international law. Following a discussion of the historical place of treaties in Russian legal history and the sources of the Russian law of treaties, the book strikes new ground in exploring contemporary treaty-making in the Russian Federation by drawing upon sources not believed to have been previously used in Russian or western doctrinal writings. Special attention is devoted to investment protection treaties. The importance of publishing treaties as a condition of their application by Russian courts is explored. For the first time a detailed account is given of the constitutional history of treaty ratification in Russia, the outcome being that present constitutional practice is inconsistent with the drafting history of the relevant constitutional provisions. The volume gives attention to the role of the Russian Supreme Court in developing treaty practice through the issuance of "guiding documents" binding on lower courts, the reaction of the Russian Constitutional Court to judgments of the European Court of Human Rights, and the place of treaties as an integral part of the Russian legal system. Butler further explores the hierarchy of sources of law, together with other facets of Russian arbitral and judicial practice with respect to treaties and other sources of international law. He concludes with a consideration of the 'generally-recognized principles and norms of international law' and their role as part of the Russian system.