This publication is intended to provide you with accurate and authoritative information concerning the subject matter covered. However, this publication is not a substitute for the advice of an attorney. If you require a legal or other expert advice, you should seek the services of a competent attorney or other professional.

This publication is intended to provide you with accurate and authoritative information concerning the subject matter covered. However, this publication is not a substitute for the advice of an attorney. If you require a legal or other expert advice, you should seek the services of a competent attorney or other professional.

Everyday Law in Russia challenges the prevailing common wisdom that Russians cannot rely on their law and that Russian courts are hopelessly politicized and corrupt. While acknowledging the persistence of verdicts dictated by the Kremlin in politically charged cases, Kathryn Hendley explores how ordinary Russian citizens experience law. Relying on her own extensive observational research in Russia’s new justice-of-the-peace courts as well as her analysis of a series of focus groups, she documents Russians’ complicated attitudes regarding law. The same Russian citizen who might shy away from taking a dispute with a state agency or powerful individual to court might be willing to sue her insurance company if it refuses to compensate her for damages following an auto accident. Hendley finds that Russian judges pay close attention to the law in mundane disputes, which account for the vast majority of the cases brought to the Russian courts. Any reluctance on the part of ordinary Russian citizens to use the courts is driven primarily by their fear of the time and cost—measured in both financial and emotional terms—of the judicial process. Like their American counterparts, Russians grow more willing to pursue disputes as the social distance between them and their opponents increases; Russians are loath to sue friends and neighbors, but are less reluctant when it comes to strangers or acquaintances. Hendley concludes that the "rule of law" rubric is ill suited to Russia and other authoritarian polities where law matters most—but not all—of the time.

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.

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.

Russia is often portrayed as a regressive, even lawless country, and yet the Russian state has played a major role in shaping and experimenting with law as an instrument of power. In Law and the Russian State, William E. Pomeranz examines Russia's legal evolution from Peter the Great to Vladimir Putin, addressing the continuities and disruptions of Russian law during the imperial, Soviet, and post-Soviet. The book covers key themes, including: * Law and empire * Law and modernization * The politicization of law * The role of intellectuals and dissidents in mobilizing the law * The evolution of Russian legal institutions * The struggle for human rights * The rule-of-law * The quest to establish the law-based state It also analyzes legal culture and how Russians understand and use the law. With a detailed bibliography, this is an important text for anyone seeking a sophisticated understanding of how Russian society and the Russian state have developed in the last 350 years.