The concept and legal regime of innovative vehicles: general theoretical issues

Sergeev Alexey Mikhailovich Postgraduate student; Department of Legal Regulation of Economic Activity; Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation Project Manager; Bureau of Advanced Products; JSC 'Information Satellite Systems named after Academician M. F. Reshetnev' 125319, Russia, Moscow, Kochnovsky ave., 4 cor. 2 alexei_sergeev@mail.ru

introduction

The relevance of the chosen research topic is explained by a number of aspects. On May 7, 2024, after taking office, the President of the Russian Federation signed Decree No. 309 "On the National Development Goals of the Russian Federation for the period up to 2030 and for the future up to 2036" (Rossiyskaya Gazeta. 2024. No. 100, hereinafter – Decree No. 309). Among the national development goals are: achieving technological leadership and digital transformation. In turn, the indicators of achieving the goal of "Technological Leadership" are "ensuring technological independence and the formation of new markets in such areas as <...> transport mobility (including autonomous vehicles)" (Decree No. 309 uses the term "autonomous vehicles" to refer to "innovative vehicles").

Decree No. 309 actually recognizes the need for a significant upgrade of the Russian transport industry through the introduction of fundamentally new vehicles. The prerequisites for such an update have been outlined for a long time. V.A. Shumaev, for example, shows the variety of innovative vehicles and the fact that they have actually entered everyday use in foreign countries ^[1]. Thus, it can be stated that the relevance of the stated topic has both a regulatory and socio-economic justification.

Thus, the task of developing innovative vehicles has been set at the highest level. Achieving this task is impossible without solving the issues of forming a qualitatively new legislative regulation based on the most balanced and rational doctrinal developments.

The study of the problem. Various aspects of the legal regulation of innovative vehicles have been repeatedly covered in the scientific literature, including by the author of this article ^[2]. Representatives of the Kutafin Moscow State Aviation University, A.Zh. Stepanyan, and then G.A. Grishchenko, considered issues of legal regulation of unmanned aerial vehicles ^{[3, 4]}. These publications were prepared in 2019 as part of the roadmaps and national strategies for the development of unmanned aerial vehicles adopted at that time: in fact, they are the first scientific look into the future regarding their necessary legal regulation. However, at the same time, they consider only a single segment of innovative vehicles, namely unmanned aerial vehicles. The study of another representative of the Kutafin Moscow State Law University, V.N. Voronin, is significant, who raised the question of the necessary method of legal regulation of digital technologies in transport ^[5]. The researcher came to the conclusion that it is promising to use legal experiments rather than regulatory methods of legal regulation of innovative vehicles. This point of view makes a dual impression: on the one hand, indeed, the introduction of innovative vehicles both in Russia and in foreign countries is carried out by methods of legal experiments. But on the other hand, it is hardly possible to see an opposition here. The introduction of a legal experiment in itself does not mean that legal regulation is not carried out within its framework. Finally, A.O. Ananenko addresses a very significant topic of legal responsibility in the field of the use of innovative vehicles ^[6].

An analysis of modern literature on the subject of the article shows that each of the authors addresses a particular aspect of the legal regulation of innovative vehicles. Russian legal science has not yet developed a comprehensive understanding of this area of legal regulation. It is also noticeable that in terms of the use of the terminological apparatus, there is a haphazardness, and sometimes confusion (which will be paid attention to in this study).

Thus, the expediency of scientific development of the problems of the legal regime of innovative vehicles is determined by the following circumstances.

Firstly, there is a need for scientific understanding of the ways of practical implementation of V.V. Putin's next "May decree" adopted in 2024 – Decree of the President of the Russian Federation No. 309 dated 05/07/2024 "On National Development Goals of the Russian Federation for the period up to 2030 and for the future up to 2036".

Secondly, the haphazard use of terminology shows the urgent need for its scientific reduction "to a single denominator".

Thirdly, it is necessary to overcome the tendency of fragmentation in research on the legal regulation of innovative vehicles, namely, to identify the legal "foundation" of individual aspects, one way or another affected by various scientists.

The scientific novelty of this study is explained by the fact that it has developed a new approach to the legal regulation of innovative vehicles and the corresponding scientific understanding – instead of purely sectoral approaches (in which the specifics of innovative vehicles are considered separately within the framework of civil law, criminal law, administrative law), an approach to regulation through the prism of the concept of legal regimes will be proposed.

The purpose of the study is to form the theoretical foundations of the legal regime of innovative vehicles, which have as their purpose the solution of a number of tasks (including socio-economic ones) for the legal registration of the introduction of this type of vehicles into everyday civil circulation. The objectives of the study are to concretize and clarify the legal apparatus, substantiate the applicability of the concept of legal regimes to the legal regulation of innovative vehicles, consider innovative vehicles through the prism of the concept of transport law, as well as solve a number of other related tasks.

The theoretical significance of this study is explained by the fact that, based on its results, approaches to the regulation of innovative vehicles, alternative to those proposed in modern legal science, are substantiated. This sets a qualitatively new vector for scientific discussion. The practical significance of the work lies in the fact that rethinking approaches to the legal registration of the operation of innovative vehicles will contribute to the intensification of their use in civil (primarily commercial) turnover. It should also be noted that the concretization of the conceptual apparatus undertaken in this article can contribute to the practical activities of the Russian legislator, who obviously finds it difficult to find a reasonable terminology in the context of the legal regulation of innovative vehicles.

The research methodology includes general scientific and special (legal) methods of scientific analysis, namely, a systematic analysis of normative legal acts, formal legal and dogmatic approaches to the study of legislation. The presence of a significant technical and economic component in the operation of innovative vehicles has led to the appeal to an interdisciplinary methodology.

THE MAIN PART OF THE ARTICLE

Decree of the President of the Russian Federation dated 05/07/2024 No. 309 "On the National Development Goals of the Russian Federation for the period up to 2030 and for the future up to 2036" uses the concept of "autonomous vehicles" as a collective term. At the moment, there is no single definition in legal science. E. V. Gotz, analyzing the conceptual apparatus from the point of view of public law regulation, suggests that the concept of an "automated system" is derived from the concept of a "technical means" ^[7].

At the same time, as a general collective concept, it seems necessary to use the term "innovative vehicles", i.e. vehicles using qualitatively new, innovative solutions. The very concept of innovation was consolidated in 2011 by amendments to the Federal Law "On Science and State Scientific and Technical Policy" (adopted back in 1996) (Rossiyskaya Gazeta. 1996. No. 167, Rossiyskaya Gazeta. 2011. № 161). Article 2 means "a new or significantly improved product (product, service) or process introduced into use, a new sales method or a new organizational method in business practice, workplace organization or in external relations." In the following paragraphs, the Federal Law reveals related concepts: innovative project, innovative activity and innovative infrastructure.

It is worth mentioning that for the first time the term "innovation" was revealed by the Austrian economist J. Schumpeter in 1982, who understood it as "a change in order to introduce and use new types of consumer goods, new production and transport facilities [author's italics], markets and forms of organization in industry" ^[8]. In other words, the very concept of innovation was developed with an eye to the field of transport. The current Russian legislative regulation of innovation activities, which does not directly mention vehicles, should not be misleading. Moreover, the proposed solution. By Schumpeter, the concept actually underlies modern Russian legislative approaches, including the Russian concept of experimental legal regimes.

Here it is necessary to draw a line between innovative vehicles and just new ones. A new model of a vehicle involves updating its technical characteristics. An innovative component in a vehicle involves not just new technical solutions, but a fundamental revision of the general philosophy of the vehicle.

First of all, such a revision implies that the need for human participation in driving a vehicle is being rethought (towards minimizing or completely rejecting). Accordingly, depending on the level of required human participation in management, it is possible to classify innovative tools – fully automated, highly automated, automated, etc.

If legally and technically necessary, automation categories can be introduced – as does the Concept of Road Safety with the Participation of Unmanned Vehicles on Public Roads approved by the Government of the Russian Federation" (see, for example: Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation dated 03/25/2020 No. 724-r "On Approval of the Concept of Road Safety with the participation of unmanned vehicles on public roads" // Collection of legislation of the Russian Federation. 2020. № 13). However, terminological confusion is often found in the regulatory framework. For example, GOST, adopted in 2022, defines the concept of a highly automated vehicle in this way: "A vehicle equipped with an automated driving system that operates within a specific environment of regular operation in relation to some or all trips without the need for human intervention [author's italics] as a backup option to ensure road safety" (full details of GOST: GOST R 70249-2022. The national standard of the Russian Federation. Artificial intelligence systems in road transport. Highly automated vehicles. Terms and definitions (approved and put into effect by the Order of Rosstandart dated 05.10.2022 N 1052-st) // Moscow: Federal State Budgetary Institution "PCT", 2022).

But if we are talking about the refusal of human participation in driving or ensuring safety, then it is more appropriate to talk about a fully automated vehicle, rather than a highly automated one. Criteria for classifying innovative vehicles according to the degree of automation are periodically proposed in science ^[9].

The approach of A.I. Korobeev and A.I. Chuchaev seems methodologically correct, who classify unmanned (in the terminology of the authors) vehicles by specific types of transport – land, sea, water, air ^[10]. Obviously, the variety of modes of transport will require a variety of areas of legal regulation, and according to the "uniform laws of the genre" it is naive to regulate innovative cars and innovative aircraft, to put it mildly. It is also noteworthy that the ironic remark of researchers indicating that the issue of fundamentally new vehicles is actually not so new: as folklore prototypes of such vehicles, the authors name boots-runners, an airplane carpet, a hut on chicken legs and a self-propelled stove with a passenger on board – Emelya ^[10].

The study by A.I. Korobeev and A.I. Chuchaev illustrates that another concept has actually entered scientific circulation – an unmanned vehicle. It seems that the meaning of this term is actually quite limited: it refers only to the field of air transport. The concept of an unmanned aircraft appeared in 2016 in the Air Code of the Russian Federation (paragraph 3.2 of Article 33) (Rossiyskaya Gazeta. 1997. No. 59-60, Rossiyskaya Gazeta. 2016. No. 149), then the legislator clarified it several times for the purpose of ensuring registration (Federal Laws No. 488-FZ dated 12/30/2021 "On Amendments to the Air Code of the Russian Federation" (Rossiyskaya Gazeta. 2022. No. 2); dated 03/14/2022 No. 56-FZ "On Amendments to the Air Code of the Russian Federation and Certain Legislative Acts of the Russian Federation" (Rossiyskaya Gazeta. 2022. No. 58); dated 03/18/2023 No. 65-FZ "On Amendments to the Air Code of the Russian Federation" (Rossiyskaya Gazeta. 2023. № 58)). In 2023, the Ministry of Transport of the Russian Federation adopted the Rules for Flying unmanned civil aircraft (Order of the Ministry of Transport of the Russian Federation dated 05/29/2023 No. 195 "On Amendments to the Order of the Ministry of Transport of the Russian Federation dated July 31, 2009 No. 128" (Official Internet portal of Legal Information http://pravo.gov.ru , 06/02/2023)) (valid from September 1, 2023 G.), and the Government of the Russian Federation approved the Strategy for the development of unmanned aviation in the Russian Federation for the period up to 2030 and for the future up to 2035 (Collection of legislation. 2023. No. 27. St. 5055).

One way or another, the characteristic of a vehicle as unmanned is used by the legislator only in relation to the relevant types of aircraft. It does not seem quite correct to use the term "unmanned" in relation to all types of fundamentally new vehicles. Let us repeat that "self-driving" as a property of an innovative vehicle is limited in nature. The use of this term as a general and collective one is not so much erroneous as an ordinary and everyday approach to understanding innovative vehicles. In fact, it can be observed that the terms "innovative vehicle" and "unmanned vehicle" are often correlated as SARS and colds.

In 2020, the State Council of the Republic of Tatarstan introduced a bill to the State Duma, which was supposed to regulate the use of innovative vehicles. It has not been adopted (see the Official Portal - The System for ensuring Legislative Activity. URL: https://sozd.duma.gov.ru/bill/910152-7 (date of application: 09/25/2024)). One of the reasons is again seen in the terminological confusion. It was proposed to understand an innovative vehicle as "a vehicle of motor transport [author's italics] designed to transport people, goods, and equipment installed on it along the roads, which uses new design solutions that qualitatively improve its operational performance related to environmental safety and the safety of road users." Obviously, the narrowing of innovative vehicles to the field of road transport is completely unjustified.

Thus, at the present stage, the use of the term "innovative vehicles" is seen as a general and collective term. Another question is that in the future it will be necessary to further clarify this conceptual framework. "Innovativeness" as a property of fundamentally new vehicles is still conditional, or rather temporary. As this means of transportation is introduced into civilian circulation and as it turns into an everyday and ordinary means of transportation, it gradually loses the property of innovation, turning, on the contrary, into a completely ordinary type of vehicles. So, in 1935, the metro was an innovative means of transport in Moscow, but it is strange to assert today that the Moscow metro is an innovative form of transport. Therefore, the discussion about the conceptual apparatus has not yet been closed.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION OF THE STUDY

Since the introduction of innovative vehicles into everyday life is already gradually becoming a reality, there is no doubt that there is a need to specify the legal regime for their use.

The general theoretical concept of the legal regime has been justified by many authors, but the most authoritative approach for many decades has been S.S. Alekseev's approach, which defined the legal regime as an order of regulation, expressed in a complex of legal means characterizing a special combination of interacting permits, prohibitions, as well as positive obligations and creating a special orientation of regulation ^{[11, p. 185]}.

Accordingly, when forming the legal regime of innovative vehicles, the legislator should find a balance of ways to regulate their activities. At a minimum, the task of defining a combination of imperative and dispositive methods of regulation is seen as urgent and urgent. Should the activity of using vehicles be regulated through the prism of the approach "Everything that is not prohibited is allowed?" or, in view of the extreme novelty of this type of transport, should we stop at the approach "Everything that is not explicitly allowed is prohibited"? This is a conceptual issue that is of fundamental importance for the vector of emerging legal regulation. And it seems that so far, in the interests of safety, preference should be given to imperative regulatory methods, although as innovative vehicles are introduced into mass operation, the scope of dispositive regulation will nevertheless expand.

Later, S.S. Alekseev clarified the concept of a legal regime and proposed to understand it as an integral system of legal regulation, which is characterized by a special order of occurrence and formation of the content of rights and obligations, their implementation, the specifics of sanctions, ways of their implementation, as well as the action of uniform principles, general provisions applicable to this set of norms ^{[12, pp. 150-151]}.

This definition is of fundamental importance for the conceptual understanding of the legal regime of innovative vehicles. So, the legal regime is a system of legal regulation and the legal regulation of the use of innovative vehicles should also be systemic, that is, assuming minimal gaps in regulation (it should also be recognized that completely "unrestricted" legal regulation is unlikely to be achievable), a combination of the rights of some subjects and the obligations of others, again, interaction between different methods of legal regulation, legal certainty in the implementation of legal norms and adequate interaction between different areas of legal regulation.

This definition also shows that the legal regime is based on "uniform principles, general provisions that apply to a set of norms." It seems that the actual task of both legal research and legislative work should be the formation of uniform principles for the use of innovative vehicles.

The principle of safety in the use of innovative vehicles requires independent reflection and scientific concretization. So far, not much attention has been paid to this issue in the scientific literature, although there is no doubt that the characteristics of an innovative tool as a safe one are crucial for solving the question of the possibility of its operation.

In general, it should be recognized that the legislative principles of operation (use) of innovative vehicles are still fragmented, fixed in single by-laws and regulations, and their clear understanding has not been carried out in the scientific literature to date. These circumstances force us to return to the statement of the need to develop a general federal law regulating the basics of the operation of innovative vehicles (for example, a federal law entitled "On the general principles of the legal regime of innovative vehicles").

The question of the degree of state participation remains open. Should any scientific and technical teams be allowed to develop innovative vehicles, or is there a need for any special permits and permits from government agencies?

Answering this question, we note that the already mentioned Federal Law "On Science and State Scientific and Technical Policy" in Article 16.1 establishes the principles of state support for innovation activities and, in our opinion, they should be fully applicable to state support for the development of innovative vehicles. In this aspect, it is noticeable that the goals of state support for innovation activities themselves coincide with the goals of introducing innovative vehicles (in fact, correlating as general and private). L.Y. Grudtsyna classifies the principles of state support for innovation activities according to the goals of such support, offering three groups:

- long-term socio-economic;

- medium-term, aimed at activating public-private partnership and determining its content;

- information and communication (security), with the purpose of popularization and accessibility of innovative activities as such ^[13].

These principles may well be used by the legislator for the purpose of specifying the general objectives of the legal regime of innovative vehicles.

Let's make a general theoretical remark: the principles and objectives of the legal regime of innovative vehicles in themselves do not replace the entire legal regulation, but only form its basis. The legal regulation of innovative vehicles, having a common "foundation" of principles and goals, should be built in a differentiated way – in relation to innovative vehicles of varying degrees of automation, different types of transport (and, in fact, this is also a principle).

In the scientific literature, the concept of legal regimes by S.S. Alekseev is often considered as an alternative to the division of law into branches – in situations where it is irrational and counterproductive to consider a particular phenomenon within a single branch of law ^{[14, p. 165]}. Similarly, the legal regime of innovative vehicles is cross-sectoral in nature. And, although there is a noticeable tendency for scientists to consider innovative transport through the prism of some specific "segment" of Russian law, the most balanced and effective regulation will be achieved only with intersectoral approaches.

Nevertheless, it is appropriate to consider the legal regulation of innovative vehicles as an integral part of the subject of transport law. However, it should be based on the approach proposed by I.A. Strelnikova, according to which transport law is not a branch of law, but "a multifunctional integrated integrated intersectoral normative education of the Russian legal system, located in its secondary structure, with the leading role of civil law in it" ^{[15, p. 10]}.

This methodological approach to transport law is also applicable to the legal regulation of innovative vehicles as combining the potentials of different branches of law. Let us pay special attention to I.A. Strelnikova's thesis on the leading role of civil law in public relations, which constitute the subject of transport law. In the future, this will also be relevant for the legal regime of innovative vehicles.

Currently, standard-setting activities are carried out mainly in the "genre" of administrative law: through the development of orders from the Government of the Russian Federation and other executive authorities. But in the future, when innovative vehicles finally become an everyday reality, their development will take place through the institutions of civil law.

Thus, the introduction of an innovative vehicle into commercial use will be mediated by civil law contracts, the innovative vehicle itself is the result of intellectual activity and thus exclusive rights. For the transportation of passengers by an innovative vehicle, civil legislation also has the necessary contractual structures.

It should be particularly noted that innovative vehicles will be most applicable in the field of entrepreneurial activity. Firstly, the development of innovative vehicles, their testing, and their introduction into civil circulation is actually possible only by economic entities with the appropriate scale of their activities (large technological and financial corporations). Secondly, the operation of such innovative vehicles itself will be focused primarily on the field of entrepreneurial activity – the subjects of organizing the transportation of goods, passengers and their luggage will primarily be large commercial organizations with the aim of maximizing profits.

The main doctrinal issue, it seems, will again be reduced to the relationship between the principles of civil law and the principles of legal regulation of innovative vehicles.

CONCLUSIONS AND CONCLUSION

The issue of the legal regime of innovative vehicles is gradually ceasing to be purely theoretical. The Government of the Russian Federation periodically introduces experimental legal regimes (see Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation dated 10/17/2022 No. 1849 "On the establishment of an experimental legal regime in the field of digital innovations and approval of the Program of an experimental legal regime in the field of digital innovations for the operation of highly automated vehicles in relation to the implementation of the initiative "Unmanned Logistics Corridors"" (Collection of Legislation of the Russian Federation. 2022. No. 43 Article 7409); Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation dated 12/29/2022 No. 2495 "On the establishment of an experimental legal regime in the field of digital innovations and approval of the Program of an experimental legal regime in the field of digital innovations for the provision of transport services using highly automated vehicles in the territories of certain subjects of the Russian Federation" (Collection of Legislation of the Russian Federation. 2023. No. 1 (Part 2). Article 300)). The first results of such regimes will be summed up (both by the highest authorities and, obviously, by the scientific community) in the second half of 2025, however, it is already clear that a large number of regulatory developments and doctrinal generalizations have accumulated, which can be the basis for a qualitatively new legal regulation of innovative vehicles. The main features of such a legal regime, in our opinion, should be:

- terminological correctness and lack of confusion in the conceptual apparatus;

- a balanced and scientifically based combination of public law and private law regulatory methods;

- specification of the principles of the legal regime of innovative vehicles and, first of all, the principle of safety of their use;

- the presence of a common part (common principles of legal regulation of innovative vehicles) and a special one, involving differentiated regulation of different types of innovative transport, as well as innovative transport of varying degrees of automation.

There is no doubt that the Russian legislator is quite capable of forming such a legal regulation, and the theoretical developments already prepared will be an excellent help in legislative development.