Is There Rule of Law in Russia: Revisiting the Concept and Practice

Globalization challenges many of the traditional assumptions about domestic law, international law, their relationships, the ways in which law is created and the methods of its enforcement.1 Law has traditionally been the province of the nation state, whose courts and police enforce legal rules. By contrast, international law has been comparatively weak, with little effective enforcement powers. But globalization is changing the contours of law and creating new global legal institutions and norms. It also brings universal concepts such as rule of law and good governance to national systems and local legal environments.2 As ‘rule of law’ has become part of the global lexicon, its precise meaning has become increasingly opaque.3 There is an agreement with the principle that law should apply in equal measure to everyone, irrespective of wealth or political status; ‘equal justice under law’ is generally accepted as the foundational principle of the rule of law. Coupled with good governance principles, the application of these concepts to the Russian legal context reveals complex issues that need to be discussed beyond the Russian domestic sphere. Such discussion is even more important in situations leading to global law or universal law concepts, which require a diverse set of legal systems that