Abstract: The dominance of the collective West caused by the liquidation of the USSR led to a sharp aggravation of the international situation, the emergence of new fierce local military conflicts with the massive use of landmine weapons. This entails the death and injury of both military personnel and civilians. The existing international treaties are practically not respected. The search for effective solutions in this area meets the basic needs of all peoples of the world, in contrast to the artificial problems of global projects of the collective West, implemented under the auspices of the WTO, IMF, IEF, WHO, and the World Bank. The obvious crisis of international humanitarian law reflects the state of international relations and makes the search for effective solutions to real humanitarian problems extremely relevant. The effectiveness of legal regulation is one of the main directions for solving the mine problem. Comparative analysis has shown that the very fact of the existence of two main treaties on landmine weapons, with different subject matter and composition of the participating States, objectively creates problems in the application and execution of these treaties. And the conducted generalization of reservations and statements made by individual parties to the treaties indicates that the latter may be aimed at non-fulfillment of these treaties. Within the framework of the two existing international mine action treaties, the obligation of their execution by the authors of the relevant novels is almost completely excluded. This conclusion is confirmed by the content of the relevant reservations, statements, and interpretations given in the work, which belong to the authorship of the States of the collective West. At the same time, it was the analysis of the relevant reservations and declarations that made it possible to formulate the main condition for international legal regulation in this area. As a solution to these problems, it is proposed to unify the regulation of the turnover of landmine weapons – the establishment of a unified concept of a mine action treaty based on the status of a party to an armed conflict. Another positive consequence of the existence of a single international treaty based on the prohibition of the use of landmine weapons on the territory of other States is the unification of the basic definitions of landmine weapons.

Keywords: reservations, declarations, Ottawa Convention, Protocol II, Convention, mine problem, local military conflicts, collective West, international humanitarian law, law of international treaties

Abstract: This article is devoted to the problems of interpretation of “prudential exception” clauses in international trade and investment agreements. The author examines in what cases the relevant international norms can be applied by states in international disputes, as well as in what cases states can avoid international responsibility if the national measures aimed at preventing financial crisis led to violation of their commitments in the field of trade liberalization and protection of foreign investments. The purpose of the article is to study the scope of rights granted to states by such rules in terms of taking measures aimed at protecting consumers of financial services, ensuring the integrity and stability of the financial system, as well as identifying restrictions on the abuse of such rights. The author makes distinction between “measures taken for prudential reasons” and “prudential measures” and determined procedural and material terms for the application of such exceptions. Author also made recommendations on how to reform the prudential exceptions contained in the Treaty on the Eurasian Economic Union. The author proposes to improve the procedure of considering investment prudential disputes, by transferring the consideration of such disputes to a special commission, the members of which should be representatives of bodies authorized to introduce prudential measures, both from the state from which the investor originates, and from the state in whose territory the investments are made.

Keywords: good faith, GATS, Treaty on the EAEU, investment dispute, financial stability, international dispute, financial crisis, financial services, prudential measures, prudential reasons

Abstract: One of the important elements of international court proceedings is the acquisition of information materials upon which the court makes its decisions. Such information, same as in the context of domestic courts, is called judicial evidence. The constituent documents of international courts contain very meager regulation of acquisition and evaluation of the evidence. The parties to international legal proceeding are the sovereign states, which makes it primarily adversarial. This implies that the parties represent the facts that confirm their positions. However, international courts rely on the principle of jura novit curia (“the court knows the law”), i.e. the parties to legal dispute do not need to plead or prove the law that applies to their case. This problem gains special importance due to the growing number and variety of international courts, as well as the emergence of a number of quasi-judicial institutions; in this sphere, all of them rely on the jurisprudence of the International Court of Justice. Certain new trends are traced in the practice of courts and even categories of cases that pertain to human rights.

Keywords: international organization, UN International Court of Justice, proliferation of international courts, judicial practice, powers of the international court of justice, judicial evidence, international judicial process, international justice, human rights, international law

Abstract: The article is devoted to a retrospective study of human rights monitoring in civil peacekeeping missions of the 1990's, in Haiti and South Africa. The beginning of the 1990's was marked by the transformation of the concept of international UN peacekeeping with the shift towards the protection of human rights. The purpose of this study is a historical and comparative analysis of the monitoring of human rights implementation on two continents – in Central America and in South Africa. Traditionally attention is paid to the point of view of Amnesty International on this issue. In the course of comparative law and the concrete-historical analysis specific characteristics of civil monitoring missions of human rights implementation in the early 1990's are identified. The conducted study is based on a combination of specific historical, comparative, formal-legal and political-legal methods. Concrete-historical analysis of human rights monitoring in the civil peace operations, which originated in the beginning of 1990's, is held for the first time in the Russian legal science. Based on the analysis of a number of international legal acts and documents (the “Agenda for peace”, resolutions of the UN General Assembly and the Security Council, recommendations of Amnesty International) and on the concrete-historical examples of civil missions in the early 1990's the change of UN position and the position of its field missions on the problem of human rights protection is shown and the main directions of its further decision, implemented within later peace operations, are defined.

Keywords: UNMIH, South Africa, Haiti, human rights, monitoring, peacekeeping, United Nations, UNOMSA, OAS, African Union

Abstract: This article analyzes the questions of protection, provision and advancement of human rights under the conditions of peacekeeping operations of the 1990’s. It is precisely this period that marked the fundamental change in the very ideology of UN’s international peacekeeping and its integral concept of protection of human rights throughout the peacekeeping missions. The goal of this research is to demonstrate just how and by how much the protection of human rights has grown during the period of transition from the “traditional” support of peace to the “expanded” peacekeeping. A special attention is given to the position of the International Amnesty on this subject. Based on the analysis of a number of international legal acts (“An Agenda for Peace”, The Vienna Declaration and Program of Action) and specific historical examples of UN peacekeeping missions of the 1990’s the author illustrates the change in attitude of the United Nations Headquarters and its field missions towards the problematics of protection of human rights, and the key directions of its further solution that were realized within subsequent peacekeeping missions.

Keywords: UN, Peacemaking, Support of peace, Peacr enforcement, Boutros-Ghali, Vienna Declaration, Human rights, Human rights protection, International amnesty, Internationa law

Abstract: The article contains analysis of various issues regarding interpretation of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea of 1982, which were faced by the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) in the course of dealing with the cases on immediate release of seized vessels and their crews. The main part of the problem is dealt with based upon the judicial practice of the International Tribunal for the Law of the sea. The author uncovers the main tendencies in the judicial practice of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, novelties and norm-making of this judicial body on the issues of immediate release of the seized vessels and their crews. The author studies the issues of confiscation (of a fishing boat in cases on unlawful fishing in an exclusive economic zone), bails and material guarantees, grounds for the seizure of foreign vessels in an exclusive economic zone, procedural issues regarding admissibility of claims for the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (namely,  presence of a real connection between a vessel and a protecting state, the need to exhaust the local legal remedies, presence of sufficient evidence).

Keywords: international law, the UN Convention, International Tribunal, law of the sea, judicial proceedings, interpretation of international disputes, judicial precedent, judicial decision, bail, confiscation

Abstract: The article concerns the nature and complications of international justice. The author studies specific practices of international courts regarding resolution of international legal disputes.  The author also pays attention to the issue of non-enforcement of judicial decisions of the international courts and the measures, which the international courts take in order to avoid this problem.  The author writes that resolution of international legal disputes, as well as provision of consultative opinons, form the main function of the international judicial institutions. The meaning of this function is to assist normal relations between the states, and it is aimed at having a real influence upon the international relations. In the opinion of the author to resolve an international legal dispute is to restore normal neighbourly relations between the conflicting states.  Law serves as means and not a goal in this process. Of course, a body resolving a dispute should not go outside the boundaries of law, but an overly formal approach towards its functions may finally lead to loss of the very meaning of its existence.

Keywords: international law, international court, judicial proceedings, judicial process, dispute, decision, consultative opinion, enforcement of judicial decisions, international relations, pacification