Erpyleva, N.Yu., Butler, W.E. Proceedings with Participation of Foreign Persons in International Procedural Law of Russia and Ukraine

This article is dedicated to one of the most interesting aspects of International Procedural Law — litigation with participation of foreign persons. Authors focused on a comparative analysis of Russian and Ukrainian legislation concerning the regulation of international procedural relations. Article includes two paragraphs: the first one considers international jurisdiction of Russian arbitrazh courts and Ukrainian economic courts on commercial matters; the second one examines the recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments in commercial matters on the territory of Russia and Ukraine. Authors deeply scrutinized a wide range of legal documents including domestic legislation and international treaties embracing either bilateral Treaty between Russia and Ukraine on legal assistance and legal relations on civil, matrimonial and criminal matters, or multilateral international treaties of regional character in the framework of the CIS in order to show the convergences and divergences in Russian and Ukrainian law concerning participation of foreign persons in international commercial litigation.

Kostennikov, M.V., Kurakin, A.V. Corruption prevention in state administration and civil service system in the Russian Federation

the article views legal and organizational issues in corruption prevention in state administration and civil service system. The article calls attention to how most of the organizational and administrative issues cause corruption growth in the civil service system. As of today, we have to acknowledge that the existing legislative measures are not sufficient to prevent corruption, and in anticorruption policy we can see domination of the political factor and political orientation. These issues hinder the implementation of all existing legislative means aimed at corruption prevention. The question of corruption prevention throughout the activities of public authorities and state administration has acquired a global and systemwide character. Corruption is an immediate threat to the national safety. It hinders democratic and civil society institutions to develop; the citizens to realize their constitutional rights in the sphere of education, public healthcare, social maintenance and property relations. Besides, corruption has a negative impact on the growth of economic and financial sector and all infrastructure of the Russian state. It is worth accentuating that corruption in the activities of public authorities and state administration contributes to the growth of organized crime, encourages the development of extremism and terrorism, threatens realization of national projects and harms all state and legal reforms which are currently being carried out in our country. The presence of all these and some other issues proves that designing of an administrative and legal mechanism of corruption prevention throughout the activities of civil servants and building of the institute of administrative justice is objectively necessary. As we can see from the experience in carrying out state and legal reforms, as well as from the practice of law enforcement activities in the sphere of corruption prevention, corruption arises in those spheres of public authorities and civil servants activities in which the status is not fully described and where there are no administrative procedures set to provide services to the citizens and legal entities. The experience of corruption revealing shows us that it arises in the spheres where civil servants realize organizational, executiveadministrative, control and supervising, jurisdictional and licensing powers. Which is why it is necessary, especially today, to improve administrative and legal regime of activities of civil authorities and administration.

Admiralova, I.A. Peculiarities of the initial investigation of human trafficking

the article contains information about the initial investigation practices and peculiarities of the criminal case opening on matters related to human trafficking. The article draws attention to what is understood by the phase of initial investigation in criminal investigation. It is quite an independent segment in the work on a criminal case, during which, along with the general tasks, some specific and casual tasks are being solved, meaning the tasks related to the crime detection and investigation and which are characteristic of this particular phase in this investigation.

Omelchuk, R.K. Evolution of rationality: intellect and the intelligible truth

The author examines value transformation of intellect and considers it in close interrelation of intellect with attainable truth. The paper specifies how intellect determines an object of cognition. The author argues that during the various periods of history of philosophy types of intellect have had specific ways of disclosure of the truth, determining priorities of personal self-identification. It is concluded that value transformation of intellect (buddhi, zhi, logos, reason, mens, ratio, intellect) is the basis of formation of modern scientific and technological civilization with its prudent-consumer attitude towards nature, society and a human. The paper will be of interest not only to philosophers, but also to all those who are interested in current problems of human being and cultural development of society.

Spirova, E.M. Why do we need history?

People of the past are alive due to a special kind of social practice — social memory. Modern psychology demonstrates sufficiently that no one can, on their own, have an adequate understanding of their social behaviour and the way of thinking. However sincere his attempts to be the judge of himself, sooner or later he has to resort to somebody else’s judgement and interpretation. This also holds true for the consciousness of nations, confessional communities, political and ideological movements. A historian’s belonging to some historiographic tradition or another, undoubtedly influences the character of his research. And to the same degree, a historian’s work is influenced by his individuality. Problems and methods of historical anthropology are not infrequently called the history of mentality. This is associated with the French School of Annals. The history of mentalities, however, can hardly pretend to have an autonomous status in the system of historical knowledge. We cannot to foresee to what and how history will respond, but there is an old observation by social psychologists that social shifts begin in a form and depth that nobody expects. People of the Renaissance considered that history began with them, they imagined themselves to be pioneers, aware as they were that they were reviving antiquity. Tradition often seems irrelevant, a password for an archaic period and preposterous old times. But it is in tradition that infinite social experience is crystallized.