2019. vol. 14. No. 1

International trade is in continuous development that results in need of development of adequate answers from the international economic institutes participating in her regulation. The authors conclude that the initiatives of international organizations in the global regulation of e-commerce are far behind business practices. Despite the dynamic development of the digital economy, international institutions have not yet been able to work out control mechanisms at the multilateral level. Therefore, today the WTO and a number of other international organizations are facing the need to develop new mechanisms for regulating trade in the conditions of digitalization. This will largely depend not only on the new rules of trade policy, but also on the future of these organizations, their placement in the hierarchy of influence of international institutions.

The article shows that countries manage to regulate various aspects of e-commerce more comprehensively at the bilateral and plural lateral levels. The use of digital trade regulations developed at the regional and plurilateral levels, as well as the cooperation of countries at other sites (APEC, OECD, the G20), may facilitate the creation of future WTO agreements governing digital trade.

This article studies the interconnection of global and regional security systems using the example of the interaction of the United Nations (UN) with the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO). According to the author, their activity is underestimated. These organizations appeared in the wake of the emergence of a pool of regional associations of countries that have become involved in security and peacekeeping activities.

Both associations have a similar composition of members, were established after the collapse of the USSR, are observers in the UN, are engaged in security as one of their key activities, and have similar functions. The CSTO and the SCO prevented new conflicts from breaking out in the post-Soviet space by acting as stabilizing forces within the borders of their regions and the participating states.

This study’s relevance is underscored first, by the special role that regional organizations play in building and operating a global security system; second, by the lack of existing research focused on the interaction of the UN with the CSTO and the SCO; and third, by the need to improve the collective mechanisms for responding to new security threats which become intertwined with existing challenges.

The theory of military-political alliances provides the analytical basis of this research. The article uses quantitative and qualitative methods, including analysis of United Nations documents. The interconnection between the UN, SCO and CSTO is analyzed by counting the number of times the keywords “CSTO” and “SCO” appear in UN documents and defining the context of their use over a period of 15 (from 2002 to 2017) and 16 years (from 2001 to 2017) respectively. An extensive database of UN documents was available from the United Nations Bibliographic Information System (UNBISNET). Based on this analysis, an assessment is made of the contribution and interest of the Russian Federation as a leading player in international relations in the process of strengthening the interconnection of global and regional security systems.

New multilateral development banks that became fully operational just three years ago – the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and the New Development Bank (NDB) – have actually finished their formation and built large-scale project portfolios. Nevertheless, emerging economies’ needs and new banks’ aspiration for a greater role among international financial institutions pose a number of further challenges.

This article aims to assess the trajectory of the new institutions and to identify their potential contribution to the transformation of the global financial system in accordance with interests of their key shareholders – emerging markets and developing economies.

The authors consider key channels for increasing the NDB and AIIB influence in the system of multilateral banks, assess the progress achieved by the two banks, and identify risks and prospects for further strengthening the positions of the two institutions.

The authors conclude that the NDB needs to integrate a number of additional measures into its medium-term strategy in order to increase its loan portfolio and expand its geography, and also specify the steps the strategy contains to expand the scale of operations, taking into account the identified opportunities and risks. Unlike the NDB, where there is formally no single country leader, the prospects for further strengthening the AIIB positions depend on several key factors, mainly determined by China’s role in its capital and governance mechanisms. According to the authors, the AIIB, compared to the NDB, will be relatively more effective in overcoming the limitations for increasing the scale of operations and gaining influence among other multilateral institutions. However, the transformational potential of the AIIB, and especially the NDB, in the global financial system will remain quite limited in the foreseeable future.

Lately, the European Union (EU) has faced multiple internal and external challenges. The conceptual response of EU institutions was “A Global Strategy for the European Union’s Foreign and Security Policy” (June 2016). At the core of the understanding of what was happening, as well as of the prospects of overcoming those crises, sat the concept of “resilience.” It has been some time since this concept appeared in the discourses of international organizations and its meaning remains volatile, situational and dependent on the scope of application, the relevant context and the authorship.

The purpose of this study is to examine the specificity of use of the concept of resilience in the discourses of the EU and various international organizations, as well as the interrelation between those uses. The sample encompasses organizations of particular importance to the European integration project and to global and regional governance, including the Council of Europe, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and those which comprise the United Nations system (the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, etc.). Since the empirical material consists mostly of official texts produced by international organizations, the preferred method of study is discourse analysis.

The analysis examines the Brussels-advanced notion of resilience from a more distant perspective, namely, within the coordinate system of global and regional governance represented by Western-dominated multilateral institutions. The study identifies channels and agents responsible for the concept’s penetration into the discourses of the EU and other international organizations. Conclusions are drawn regarding similarities and divergences in the articulations of resilience. Particular focus is put on the interrelation between the concept and the neo-liberal approach to risk management and security.

The author studies the communitarian and conventional models of legal integration used in the European Union (EU) and the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), respectively. The purpose of this comparative legal analysis is to determine unique features reflecting differences between these models. Particular focus is on the examination of legal acts of public bodies of the EU and the EAEU — their legal nature, place, role and the characteristics of their implementation in the national legal systems of their members. The author also analyses how the Court of the European Union and the Court of the Eurasian Economic Union control the enforcement of legislation of the EU and the EAEU, primarily in those cases where the courts assess justifications provided by supranational public bodies of these unions when they pass legal acts creating rights and obligations directly for citizens of the EU and economic entities of the EAEU. The article offers a rationale for the concept stating that the absolute priority of integration law over national legislation and the binding power of decisions of a supranational court for all participants of integration relations are the key milestones of supranational legal integration; when these milestones are achieved, it is possible to open borders not only for economic cooperation, but also for other forms of collaboration not linked tightly to the general processes of transnationalization of the economies.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the problem of Russia’s relations with the countries of the former USSR has traditionally been the focus of attention of both the academic and the expert community. This issue becomes especially urgent in the context of significant changes in world politics caused by the rapid deterioration of relations between Russia and the western world following the escalation of the Ukrainian crisis. This article identifies the key economic, political and social factors having a negative impact on the current dynamics of relations between the Russian Federation and the countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and thereby gradually decreasing Russia’s influence in the former Soviet Union.

The article is structured around three groups of factors — objective, ambivalent and subjective — which impede the growth of Russia’s influence in the former Soviet Union. Objective factors are related to economic and political issues, ambivalent (mixed) factors are those of sociocultural and historical nature and subjective factors are predominantly psychological. Based on an extensive analysis of relevant material, the authors conclude that the CIS countries refuse to follow the pro-Russian path not only (and in some cases not so much) due to the objective need of the post-Soviet countries for diversified political, trading and economic ties, but also (and rather) for several subjective, social and cultural, political and psychological factors considered in detail below. An important conclusion of this research is that most subjective factors negatively affecting the efficiency of Russia’s policy in the former Soviet Union can be potentially and significantly minimized in a relatively short term. Objective factors, especially those concerning Russia’s declining role in the world economy and its reduced trade volumes with the CIS countries, on the contrary, are of a rather long-term nature and therefore it may take a considerable amount of time to adjust the current dynamics.

This article examines the impact of anti-Russian sanctions introduced by the U.S., including the sanctions package signed on 10 August 2017, on the foreign investment activity of Russian oil and gas transnational corporations (TNCs) such as Lukoil and Rosneft in particular. The authors examine the American sanctions against Russia and identify the possible consequences of such restrictions for the development of the Russian oil and gas sector and foreign capital expansion of Russian oil and gas majors; the authors also analyze the foreign investment activity of Lukoil and Rosneft under the sanctions regime.

The study of the evolution of international cooperation for development in the United Nations (UN) system from 1946 to 2000 reveals that political and ideological contradictions and priorities exerted significant influence on the system’s construction, creating barriers to negotiating resolutions and forging decisions and constraining progress in development cooperation.

This article reviews the USSR’s initiatives and positions on concrete areas of cooperation, drawing on an analysis of the resolutions and records of the meetings of the UN General Assembly (GA) and the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). It highlights the main trends and cases reflecting the Soviet Union’s priorities and its role in the evolution of cooperation for development under UN auspices.

Content analysis of meeting records helps to trace the official positions of delegations, problems in advancing cooperation, opportunities for building coalitions, difficulties forging compromises and constraints stemming from the failure to pursue an integrated and comprehensive approach to the resolution of development and international financial/economic problems.

The USSR actively contributed to deliberations and decision-making on a wide range of cooperation for development issues, promoting the primacy of the principles of national policy, developing countries’ sovereignty over their natural resources and the right of their exploitation, development of countries’ economic potential through support for industrialization, technology transfer, agricultural and national cadre development, and the creation of the necessary external conditions for the mobilization of developing countries’ own resources.

These principles, the pursuit of change in the international balance of economic power and the drive for an expansion of influence defined the Soviet Union’s initiatives and its support for developing countries on such issues as global negotiations aimed at the establishment of a new international economic order as proposed by the Group of 77 (G77) — this call was blocked by the Group of 7 (G7) using the Versailles formula to safeguard the independence of the specialized agencies. 

Inability to allocate substantial amounts of funding significantly weakened the USSR’s influence on decisions defining the parameters of development support mechanisms. Telling examples include the failure to promote the establishment of the UN capital development fund or to counter the assertion of the dollar monopoly in the UN cooperation for development system.

The solidarity of the USSR and the U.S. with their respective allies frequently led to opposition on issues which did not contradict either of the opponents’ interests. A case in point is the struggle around the participation of the German Democratic Republic and the Federal Republic of Germany in the UN conference on human environment in Stockholm.

Distrust and tough opposition caused multiple lost opportunities, including a chance to generate additional resources for development through the conversion of resources released by disarmament to peaceful needs.

At the end of the 1990s, following the economic crises of the previous decades, a series of external debt crises and assessment of accumulated data on aid effectiveness and donor fatigue, the principles promoted by the USSR in the first decades of cooperation for development were reflected in the Agenda for Development and the Millennium Declaration.

The Sustainable Development Goals, adopted by the UN General Assembly on 25 September 2015, cover a wide range of challenges faced by developing and developed countries alike. The Agenda 2030 is focused on fighting poverty in all its manifestations through the implementation of strategies for sustainable economic growth.

The SDGs are relevant on both international and national levels. This article discusses the policy of the six major foreign aid donors in achieving the SDGs both domestically and abroad. The countries selected for the analysis include three major developed donors: Germany, Canada, and Japan, as well as three new developing donors: Brazil, India, and China.

The comparative analysis was based on such aspects of the national policy aimed at achieving the SDGs as: a) SDGs inclusion into national conceptual and strategic documents; b) institutional organization and social partners engagement; c) integration of the SDG priorities into foreign aid strategies; d) official ODA motivation; e) and the quality of communication policy on the SDGs implementation.

Based on a review of the aforementioned countries’ experience in localizing the SDGs, the author makes recommendations to advance this agenda in the Russian Federation.

The Sustainable Development Goals, adopted by the UN General Assembly on 25 September 2015 in Resolution 70/1 “Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development” embrace a wide range of issues facing both developed and developing countries.

Implementation of the SDG is of particular interest both in international context and according to the agenda of socio-economic development of the Russian Federation, thus the task of identifying medium-term sustainable development priorities of Russia acquires great importance. The paper is based on comparative analysis of priorities of the Presidential Order “On National Goals and Strategic Objectives of the Russian Federation through to 2024” (the May-2018 Executive Order), active state programs and the SDG targets. The purpose of the paper is to determine the correlation between the SDG targets and Russia’s medium- and long-term national strategic goals.

The outcomes of the research demonstrate that there is a room for further increase of effectiveness of implementation of the SDG based on contingent approach ensuring solidarity and balancing of social, economic and ecological aspects of the SDG implementation. Russia’s strategy towards implementation of the SDG requires greater level of contingency meaning incorporation of social aspects of sustainable development into national strategic documents.

This article describes the experience of localization and implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) at the national level in the 10 countries which top the global SDG Index compiled by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) and the Bertelsmann Stiftung. The authors apply methods of comparative and content analysis of national and international documents and conclude that leading countries began to work actively on the transition toward sustainable development more than a decade ago, established effective inter-ministerial coordination in this area and have achieved significant success. Nevertheless, even they are still far from the full implementation of the SDGs. Moreover, not all of them have localized Agenda 2030 within their national sustainable development strategies.

The authors identify three key SDG localization and implementation schemes: full localization (e.g. Germany), implementation of the SDGs without their formal localization (e.g. Sweden) and the complete absence of localization (e.g. Finland). The most preferable and effective scheme, according to the authors, is the first one.

In the late 1990s, Russia could have become one of the pioneers of sustainable development. However, due to insufficient political will, Russia is still at the initial stages of its transition toward sustainable development. In order to catalyze progress in this area, Russia needs to urgently develop and adopt a national sustainable development strategy in which all of the SDGs are localized, take into account SDGs in other key strategic documents and set specific quantitative goals and designate ministries that will be responsible for achieving these goals.

Over the past 10 years the problems related to ecosystem services have been reflected not only in scientific developments but also in official conceptual documents of the leading international organizations, including the United Nations (UN), the World Bank, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the European Community (EC). Ecosystem services and payments for these services have become important in the economic and political parts of these documents. This is related in many ways to the awareness of the rapid degradation of nature, which also damages human well-being and the economy. This article analyzes the existing definitions and classifications of ecosystem services by international organizations and in the scientific literature. It concludes that the term “ecosystem services” remains controversial and that there are a number of approaches to its definition. Common in these approaches is an attempt to link eco-services with benefits for human well-being. The most recognized approach is the methodology of the UN Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, which defines ecosystem services as those benefits that people receive from ecosystems. Particular attention in this article is paid to identifying the economic value of ecosystems and their services, which is the most difficult and urgent task for economic science. Due to the latent nature of many benefits from ecoservices and their diffusion among consumers/beneficiaries, they largely serve as public goods and are seen as free. Thus their importance is greatly underestimated, which leads to their degradation. Without a solution to this problem, the transition to a new economy for humanity is impossible. It is necessary to level out the risks of over-exploitation and depletion of ecosystem services, which requires that the environmental factor is adequately taken into account when making economic decisions.

In Russia the economics of ecosystem services has been poorly developed both in economic research and in legal and policy documents. An important step in resolving this problem should be the implementation of the Russian president’s Orders to the Government of the Russian Federation (January 2017), which envisage the development of an international environmental agenda for the formation of a system of compensation (payments) for ecosystem services with Russia as an environmental donor. Such a system needs to be formed within the country to support regions with large ecosystem capital.