The present article covers the state policy of the Russian Federation in the field of international information security. The purpose of the study is to identify the key directions for strengthening international cooperation in the area of information security. The article examines the state of bilateral cooperation on international information security issues, in particular on the example of the Agreement between the Government of the Russian Federation and the Government of the People’s Republic of China on Cooperation in the Field of International Information Security. The article analyses Russian initiatives put forward in regional and multilateral organizations. Thus, special attention is paid to cooperation within BRICS, the SCO, the CSTO and ASEAN. Regional and interregional interaction in this area increases the stability and security of the respective regions, taking the national interests of the parties involved into account. The article also studies Russian projects promoted at the global level, namely, the UN General Assembly resolutions proposed by the Russian Federation. Russia and its partners contributed to the adoption of a set of 13 international rules, principles and norms of responsible behaviour of states in the information space. The convocation of an Open-Ended Working Group, whose mandate has been extended until 2025, has become an important contribution of Russia to institutionalization of the discussion mechanism within the United Nations. The author concludes that Russian projects and cooperation agreements reached can foster the development of a political and legal framework of the international information security system. The focus on promoting the formation of such a system is confirmed by the updated Basic Principles of State Policy of the Russian Federation in the Field of International Information Security. However, these initiatives are not exhaustive. Therefore, the formation of such a system requires the efforts of the entire world community.

The article covers the legal aspects of the establishment of a new international forum – the Arctic Economic Council – and its role in the existing international legal framework for governing the Arctic Ocean, including the Arctic seas. The status and the functioning of this international forum, particularly with regard to the activities within its Working Groups, are examined based on an analysis of the documents adopted by the forum since its establishment. Special attention is paid to the legal analysis of the coordination of the newly established forum with the Arctic Council and the prospects of such institutional cooperation.

The research is based on the relevant documents released by the Artic Council, in the context of legal and scientific sources on the topic of the Arctic Ocean and its seas, as well as on the Reports of the Arctic Economic Council submitted to the Senior Officials of the Arctic Council. The article also takes into consideration the political and legal research into the Arctic Council’s work, aimed at the sustainable development of economic activities in the region, as well as respective archive documents from the electronic database of the Arctic Council, including relevant press releases.

The Arctic Economic Council (AEC), established at the initiative of the Arctic Council in 2014, is a new circumpolar business forum, which aims at fostering the sustainable development of the Arctic region by substantive cooperation with entrepreneurs who carry out economic activities in the region or plan to do so. The new international organization has the potential to become an effective international legal mechanism to promote greener economies in the Arctic. At the same time, however, the organization is yet to become a constructive platform for dialogue on fostering economic activities in the region.

The AEC foundational documents determine the structure and the course of action of the organization. The article, nevertheless, suggests that the executives and the Secretary of this newly established international forum ensure that business representatives, committed to conducting activities in the Arctic, seek to comply with international environmental standards, applicable to the Arctic, namely, the exchange of best practices, with due account of the unique vulnerability of the Arctic environment. Moreover, in view of the growth in shipping and other marine activities in the region, Arctic business standards need to be more environmentally oriented, while also taking into account the possibility of diversifying the Arctic economy. The AEC could focus its efforts on enhancing the quality of regional regulation of the economic activities in the Arctic, paying particular attention to the coordinated self-regulative measures of the legal entities in different countries. In this case, its activities may prove to be more relevant and effective.

This article examines the impact of technological changes on the risks of military clashes between states. Currently, experts express increasing concerns about the destabilizing effect of new weapons (including anti-missile and anti-satellite weapons, hypersonic missiles, autonomous lethal systems, and artificial intelligence). These assessments are rarely based on solid theoretical foundations. The author seeks to fill this gap, arguing that the emergence of new weapons has a negative impact on international stability, and this effect is weakly related to the specific characteristics of underline technologies. The theory of technological uncertainty offers an alternative to the offence-defence balance theory. The latter has been developed since the 1970s, but its validity is questionable. The theory of technological uncertainty attributes the destabilizing effect of weapons to the divergence of states’ perceptions of the balance of powers, hyped expectations regarding the ability to compensate quantitative limitations with qualitative superiority, and the alarmistic sense of closing windows of opportunities and growing vulnerabilities. The article tests the theory against the historical record of military clashes in Europe from the end of the 18^th to the middle of the 20^th centuries, as well as the crises between superpowers during the Cold War. Empirical cases are selected from this period, which is marked by the intensification of qualitative arms races between states. In addition, it is also the period most often used to substantiate the offence-defence balance theory. The history of the last t250 years provides a solid foundation for the theory of technological uncertainty. All instances of large-scale military clashes were preceded by significant technological changes, while peace fell on periods of technological stagnation. The author addresses the policy implications of the theory for the discussions on emerging weapons in the 2010s and 2020s. The study confirms that concerns regarding their destabilizing effect are justified, but for different reasons from those put forward by most analysts. A somewhat optimistic caveat to its conclusions is the fact that currently emerging weapons are at various stages of development. The greatest likelihood of military clashes corresponds to the overlap of several technological uncertainties. Therefore, an increase in the time lag between introduction of various arms can mitigate destabilizing effect.

The purpose of this work is to identify the main problems in the modern international legal protection of animals and the theoretical justification of the need to change their legal status (regime). The main task of the paper is to study modern concepts that have already become the basis of international legal acts for the protection of various categories of animals, as well as ideas that have sufficient potential to lay the foundation for a more conscious attitude to other biological species. Furthermore, the research highlights significant shortcomings of the global legal policy on animal protection, which hinder the achievement of the main goals of international cooperation in this area. The article also suggests new approaches that can solve both ethical and environmental problems in relations between humans and animals in the very near future. In addition, this scientific work provides various philosophical and legal arguments that confirm the need to assign a special legal status to animals. The research examines the doctrinal positions of mainly non-Russian researchers and legal experts dealing with the issue of the international legal protection of animals. This study uses the norms of certain international legal agreements of a global and regional nature, as well as the provisions of recommendation documents. The research uses general theoretical approaches (analysis, synthesis, comparison, induction, deduction, abstraction, generalization, idealization, analogy, modelling, concretization, logical, systematic and comparative analysis) and special legal methods (historical-legal, formal-legal and the method of legal forecasting). Based on the results of the study, the author identifies the main problems in the international legal regulation of relations on the conservation of biodiversity in the framework of the implementation of the concepts of environmental protection and sustainable development. In addition, the study highlights the most important achievements and significant gaps in the EU’s legal policy on animal welfare. Through the synthesis and generalization of the main provisions of the concept of well-being and the concept of animal rights, this work forms an idea of the most successful model of international legal protection of animals. Based on the results, the study predicts the inevitable change in their legal status (regime) and the revision of the existing anthropocentric paradigm of modern legal science. The vast majority of existing international legal agreements on the protection and use of animals protect the secondary interests of modern consumer society, where animals have a rank based on their usefulness, without taking their immanent value into account. If the trends of recent decades continue, the environmental goals set by international environmental law will remain unattainable. In order to solve a layer of ethical and environmental problems, it is necessary to abandon the anthropocentric approach, which permeates the entire system of international law, in favour of a better organization of human relations with nature (for example, in favour of anthropocosmocentrism, cosmocentrism, biocentrism, etc.). In addition, the identification of animals with property does not correspond to modern ideas about animals as sentient beings. It is unacceptable to treat animals as “things” within the framework of national legal systems and international law. Regardless of whether they will have legal capacity or will lead a new, specific category of persons, animals must have a certain set of international legal guarantees.

This article seeks to explain why there is no formal military-political alliance between Russia and China. The conclusion of such an agreement would be logical given the expanded cooperation between the two countries, including in the military sphere, which pushes the relationship very close to an alliance, and at the same time exacerbates tensions with the United States. By employing International Relations theory, the author highlights the balance between benefits and costs, which is not conducive to the creation of a formal bloc, the numerous unit-level factors that inhibit such an alliance, coexisting convergent and divergent interests, the asymmetry of the capabilities of the two countries, and the interdependency in their bilateral relations. As a result of analysing the key characteristics of the strategic partnership, the article demonstrates that Russia–China relations conform to the notion of alignment structured around the system-level goal of promoting a multipolar or polycentric world order and a set of common principles. Russia–China relations entered a new stage in their development in 2014, a stage that is characterized by closer political, security and economic cooperation. Against the background of strategic competition with the United States, Russia and China have intensified military cooperation. While the global interests of the two states are much alike, their regional interests frequently overlap or diverge. As a result, the two countries are not interested in being drawn into each other’s conflicts as, despite the deterioration of relations with the West, it remains an important partner for both Russia and China. It is instructive that Moscow and Beijing balance Washington mostly individually, and they are deemed quite capable by their leadership to conduct military action under most likely scenarios falling short of full-scale war. Adding to the potential costs of an alliance is the reduction of foreign policy autonomy. The growing asymmetry of complex power and economic relations, coupled with the modernization of the People's Liberation Army and the gradual reduction of China’s dependence on Russia in military technologies and components predetermine the increasing likelihood that a Russia–China alliance would become more asymmetric in the future, notwithstanding the fact that it would be fairly symmetric at first. This would it turn exacerbate the risks of Russia transforming into a subordinate player in the long term. At present, a strategic partnership makes allows Russia and China to pursue their goals while not bearing the costs of an alliance. However, the deepening strategic confrontation between the United States and China, together with the persistent conflict in US–Russia relations may draw Russia and China closer together.

The expansion of nodal global corridors has become a remarkable phenomenon in the field of maritime transport communications. In July 2015, the second branch of the Suez Canal (built in 1869) was put into operation. In June of the next year, the second line of the Panama Canal (opened in 1920) was launched. Now it is the Bosporus Strait’s turn, with the Turkish government planning to lay the Istanbul Canal to run parallel to it. The new canal is set to receive the first ships in 2023, on the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Republic of Turkey. If built, the Istanbul Canal may radically change the international legal situation in the Black Sea region. This directly affects the interests of Russia, which has forced the country to determine its position in relation to the Istanbul Canal. In this regard, this article provides an analysis of the main Russian and Turkish publications on the Turkish megaproject that appeared in 2011– 2020 with a view to discerning the degree of knowledge about this problem, as well as to assess the adequacy of the forecasts. Clarifying the degree of knowledge of the problem will help limit the number of “repetitive” articles and outline new prospects for research. This is especially true now that Russia has officially renounced opposition to the Istanbul Canal. Unlike Turkish experts, Russian researchers focus on the foreign policy aspects of this issue, which often leads to unfounded conclusions regarding the geopolitical consequences of the Istanbul Canal. In this regard, it seems more promising to study the economic component of the Istanbul project, since the financial side of the issue determines the fate of any project. This is especially important now, when the exhaustion of the ideological concept (the postponement of the commissioning of the Istanbul Canal from the anniversary year of 2023 to a later date) has led to the fact that the project of the President of the Republic of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan has become one of the most noticeable factors in the country’s domestic political life.

The negotiation of parameters for the settlement of an armed conflict is always a complex process in which the interests of all its immediate participants and other concerned parties collide. One of the most striking examples of such confrontations is the settlement process at the end of the Korean War of 1950–1953, which culminated in the Geneva Conference of 1954. The purpose of this article is to specify the role of the United States as the leader of the UN coalition in the negotiations, as a result of which, after three years of war involving approximately two dozen countries, the situation returned to its original state – the pre-war border between North and South Korea was restored, and the most active and influential members of the opposing alliances agreed to a truce. The archival documents that have become available in recent years allow us to significantly supplement the ideas formed in domestic and foreign historiography about the reasons for the incompleteness of the peace settlement process in Korea after the end of the war of 1950–1953. The article examines the contribution of US diplomacy to the creation of the Korean agenda at the conference, and shows that the UN coalition had been functioning in the “double deterrence” mode by the start of the negotiations in Geneva. The role of the United States as the leader of the military-political alliance in the development of plans for the unification of the Korean Peninsula is clarified. We conclude that from as early as the second half of May 1954, the United States primarily proceeded from the motives of propaganda when making decisions and seriously considered terminating the negotiations. As a result, the chance to resolve the Korean issue was ignored and the Geneva Conference turned into a means of fundamentalizing the American strategy in the Northeast Pacific region. This article demonstrates that the results of the conference were in line with the immediate expectations of Washington and its long-term strategy in the Asia-Pacific region. The results of the Korean phase of the Geneva Conference consolidated the division of Korea into two hostile states and for a long time closed the question of possible union of the country.

Issues of peace have always been important for historical science. However, in recent years, international historiography has started to pay attention to the symbolism and socio-cultural design of peace congresses. The symbolic power of “special days” – whether it is a Christian holiday or an event of exceptional significance – allowed people of early Modernity to express their attitude to reality and power. An analysis of the choice of dates for concluding peace by adversarial states within the Westphalian system demonstrates three consistent options. The first is signing a peace treaty on a Saturday, Sunday, or a Christian holiday. The most striking example of this option is the signing of the Peace of Westphalia itself (the treaties of Münster and Osnabrück on October 24, 1648), on a Saturday – the day before the second Sunday after Trinity. The second option involves a reference to an important event in the past. For example, the Peace in Passarowitz between the Holy Roman Empire and Porta (1718) and the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca between Russia and Turkey (1774) were signed on the same date – July 21, the date when Istanbul and Peter the Great signed the Treaty of the Pruth in 1711. Since the age of the Enlightenment, when the “Right to Peace” began to compete with the “Right to War” in political theories, the date of peace could be directly determined by the end of negotiations. Sometimes the conclusion of peace became a Christian holiday. Peter the Great decided to consecrate the day of the conclusion of the Nystad Peace Treaty by transferring the relics of the Holy Grand Duke Alexander Nevsky from Vladimir to the new Russian capital – St. Petersburg. The conclusion of peace in this case was used as a tool of social constructivism, implemented through modelling. The political idea was symbolically grounded in significant historical or religious dates. Combining the historical precedent, the Christian holiday and the end of the war emphasized the sacred nature of Peace as the highest social value.

The West is concerned about the crisis of the liberal world order, attributing it to the conduct of emerging powers, such as China, India and Russia. Are these concerns legitimate? Drawing on social identity theory, the authors analyse the stances of the emerging powers on international development through the lens of status dynamics. In particular, three issue areas are investigated: the debate over the UN development agenda, which has revealed differences between Western and non-Western approaches; the changes in the membership of donor and recipient groups over the last decade; and the discourse of emerging countries concerning science and technology, which betrays their self-image of “developed” or “laggard” states.

The key finding of the paper is that the crisis of the liberal world order as a set of institutions created by the US-led countries after WWII manifests itself in the distorting symbolic exchange between developed and developing countries. The emerging states are unwilling to recognize the authority of the West and its leadership in setting the direction of global development. Meanwhile, they are trying to gain the status of development front-runners, using their own foreign aid programmes and science and technology development strategies. However, the rising states are not uniform and consistent in posing a symbolic challenge to the liberal order – while Russia is striving for the status as a “developed non-Western country” (thereby copying the image of the USSR), India and China, though to different degrees, are positioning themselves both as developed industrial states and as developing countries that receive aid packages from richer members of the international community.

What leads to the distortions in this symbolic exchange is the desire of some emerging powers to use the resources of the West and reap the benefits of the world order created by it while denying it a high status. Thus, a classic economic “free-rider problem” arises in international relations: while benefiting from the liberal order created by the West, the rising states do not recognize the status it ascribes itself, ignoring the symbolic hierarchy which, as viewed by Western countries, underlies this order.

This article is the part of the recent emotional turn, characterized by the increased attention of scholars in the social sciences to the study of collective emotions in international affairs. The former dominance of the biological and essentialist paradigms in this field have been replaced by a number of culture-cantered approaches based on social constructivism, which were elaborated within two pioneering disciplines – the anthropology of emotions and the history of emotions. The influence of such a scientific revolution included the key axis of the general versus the unique, with an emphasis on the latter. IR has been also affected by an emotional turn, with the field of constructivist emotional studies being established in the early 2000s. This work focuses on the transnational structural general–collective emotional patterns that have z recurrent nature and emerge beyond state borders. This part of reality has not been conceptualized by scholars. Therefore, the aim of the article is to fill an epistemological vacuum and outline the ways to conceptualize the transnational structural common. IR appears to be the most suitable field to do this. The empirical case of the crisis response after terrorist attacks are analysed as the example of the transnational structural common. This case is explored by the author through the framework of “emotional culture” as defined by Simon Koschut, in combination with the concept of “emotives” developed by William Reddy. Speeches by the leaders of Israel, the United States, Russia, India and France immediately following terrorist attacks in these countries from 1972 to 2015 allow to identify an integrated tripartite emotional structure, which is observed in each of the cases. This structure includes an emotive of pity; a compensatory structure with the emotives of fighting fear through reciprocal determination; and, finally, an emotive of solidarity. This discursive structure functions in a stable way because the emotional code connects the type of event (terrorist attack) with the cultural script (a triadic structure). Finally, some approaches in sociological institutionalism would enrich future studies of emotion culture.

The amendments to the Russian Constitution in 2020 challenged de novo the prevalence of international law and led Russia to search for its own perception of international law. Although the amendments did not introduce drastically substantive modifications to the international law modus operandi in the national legal system, they nevertheless shifted the constitutional focus. The previous version of the Constitution of the Russian Federation was built on the presumption of the juridical consistency of the constitutional order and Russia’s international commitments. Today there is the a priori suggestion of possible conflicts between the requirements of the Constitution and the judgments of international courts. The paper comprises a short historical analysis of the internationally meaningful rules of the Constitution in its comparison to the current legal situation in Russia. A relatively superficial but illustrative juridical overview of the relevant constitutional provisions with their domestic legal counterparts demonstrates the significance and practical efficiency of the concomitant interpretation of the constitutional rules and Russia’s international obligations. Paradigmatically, such a shift is still awaiting a new interpretation of the fundamentals of the Constitution. At the very least, they need to be constructed differently in order to be concomitant with the refusal mechanism (as regards international judgments). Still, unchanged, the constitutional fundamentals verbatim provide for a proliferated mechanism of human rights protection under international law within domestic order and still require the concordant interpretation of the international commitments and constitutional rules. The modified constitutional landscape drastically shifted the priority of international law in the Russian legal system. Although international law leaves it to the State to determine the status of its international commitments, the constitutional fundamentals (left untouched verbatim) still require international law to be the priority. The constitutionally enclosed human right protection mechanism emphasizes such a priority.

The establishment of diplomatic relations between states, among other mutual obligations of the parties, is based on the duty of the receiving state to provide appropriate conditions for the efficient performance of the functions of diplomatic mission. To this end, the authorities of the receiving state undertake to ensure respect for the full range of diplomatic immunities and privileges provided both in relation to the mission itself and in relation to diplomatic agents and members of their families. The members of the diplomatic mission, in turn, undertake not to abuse the special legal status in the receiving state and not to take actions that entail interference in the internal affairs of the receiving state, undermining the security of the latter and going beyond the official actions of the diplomatic mission. However, diplomatic practice is replete with examples of massive violations of diplomatic immunities and privileges, both by the authorities of the receiving state and third parties, and by the carriers of these immunities and privileges themselves. A special place among these violations is given to the violation of the personal inviolability of diplomatic agents. The present article examines the legal nature of the immunity of personal inviolability, violations of this immunity and the measures taken by states to provide full protection to members of a diplomatic mission and their families.

In the course of the study, international treaties applicable to the institution of diplomatic immunities and privileges were used, including: the Havana Conventions of 1928, the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations of 1961, the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations of 1963, the Convention on Special Missions of 1969, the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Crimes against Internationally Protected Persons, Including Diplomatic Agents of 1973, the Vienna Convention on the Representation of States in their Relations with International Organizations of a Universal Character of 1975, as well as scientific works on diplomatic and consular law by Russian and international experts, and judgments concerning violations of diplomatic immunities and privileges.

The methodological basis of the research was formed by the following general scientific techniques: analysis, synthesis, induction, deduction, comparison, classification, systematization, forecasting. Such specific scientific methods as formal legal and comparative legal methods were also applied.

The article provides a comprehensive analysis of the practice of granting and observing diplomatic immunities and privileges, based on the provisions of international treaties and acts of national law of some states. Particular attention is paid to cases of violation of diplomatic immunities and privileges and measures taken by states to prevent similar violations in the future.

According to the results of the research, it can be argued that there is a very dangerous tendency in the use of diplomatic immunities and privileges as a weapon of influence on states. It is necessary to develop new measures to ensure full protection of foreign bodies of external relations and their members, strengthen domestic control over the observance of the legal status, immunities and privileges of these bodies and their members, and strengthen cooperation between states to counter acts of violation directed against internationally protected persons.