The Forum "Globalization, the State and Law in the 21st Century" was held 22-24 January in Moscow on the initiative of the Association of Lawyers of Russia, the International Foundation for the Promotion of Legal Initiatives and the International Association of Lawyers with the assistance of the RF Constitutional Court, the RF Supreme Court, the RF Supreme Court of Arbitration, the RF Ministry of Justice, the RF Procurator-General's Office, the RF Securities Commission, the RF Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the RF Academy of Sciences. The Forum was attended by over 300 participants, representing supreme judicial bodies, government ministries and agencies, international organizations, legal companies and business circles, including representatives of national lawyers' associations from 16 countries, Procurator-General of Japan, representatives of the UN and the European Commission, the International Financial Corporation, which is a member of the World Bank Group, and the New York Stock Exchange.
The UN Deputy Secretary-General for legal issues and the legal adviser of the UN Hans Korell addressed the Forum participants with a letter, in which he noted that "transnational economic development offers a wealth of opportunities to a dynamic country like the Russian Federation: the prospect of increased trade, enhanced investment, and improvement in the well-being of the people. The Russian Federation is accelerating its negotiations to become a member of the World Trade Organization (WTO), there will be further opportunities for your country to increase its share in international trade and the world economy. However, experience of other countries shows that all the promising opportunities of access to international markets do not necessarily translate into real economic gains to the extent allowed by the industrial capacity and entrepreneurial spirit of the country. It is one thing to remove a barrier - it is quite another to have a road in place for economic development. Trade must not be a one-way street. International business can be conducted on an equitable basis and bring long-term sustainable growth to an economy in transition. However, no efforts to promote trade can be successful, even if tariff and non-tariff barriers to trade are further reduced, unless harmonized and modern commercial laws are enacted and enforced".
Moscow Legal Forum discussed the problem of harmonization of Russia's legislation, as well as the issues of interaction among the legal systems of CIS and Western countries. In particular, the Forum approved the idea of creating the unified legal space of CIS and the European Community in the area of finance and business law, developed and put forward jointly by Alexander Zakharov, Chairman of the Council of the International Association of Exchanges of CIS countries and Oleg Kutafin, Vice-President of the RF Association of Lawyers and a Corresponding Member of the RF Academy of Sciences. The idea contains the following theses:
- The European law demonstrates dynamic changes, emphasizing the best achievements of national legal systems and adapting them to the level of less developed legal systems of EU countries. The latter will soon include our East European neighbors and the Baltic states, which are comparable with Russia. This is why in the sphere of business and financial law the optimal approach might be having in mind the developing or existing legal standards of the European Community;
- It is essential that the ways of development of law in Russia and CIS countries would not diverge. It is difficult to speak about the convergence of the norms of business and financial law, because a considerable number of these norms have yet to be created. Still, it is important to come to an agreement about certain legal standards in the sphere of business and finances so that these standards would be taken into account when creating new norms;
- When defining common standards of business and financial law, it is best to be guided, from the very beginning, by the European legal standards. It is necessary to create the unified legal space of CIS countries in order to facilitate and rationalize the creation of the national financial legislation. The CIS unified legal space is also needed to facilitate economic relations with Europe.
Chairman of the Constitutional Court of Armenia G.Arutunyan emphasized that "the principles of jural democratic state are becoming dominating, while the protection of rights is becoming a supranational phenomenon". He urged the Forum participants to take into account the experience of the European Community, which took the path of integration based on political, economic and cultural commonness.
At the suggestion of the Co-Chairman of the Organizing Committee, President of the RF Association of Lawyers Andrei Trebkov, the Forum passed a resolution, proposed by A.Zakharov and O.Kutafin, which says: "the necessity of convergence of the legislation of CIS countries is determined by their placement within a unified economic space and their traditional historical, economic and cultural links.
At the same time, it is necessary to define the conceptual foundations of the convergence of the legal systems of CIS countries and determine the world legal standards which must be taken into account.
Here, we can be guided by the legal standards of the European Community, which are based on the major achievements of well-developed national legal systems. Besides, it will take the European Community several years to adapt its legal standards, considering the level of the legal development of the East European countries and the Baltic states, which quite comparable to Russia's level.
This is why we can speak about the idea of "unified legal space of CIS and the European Community" as a conceptual background of the development of law in Russia and CIS in the coming years. The specific character of the development of each country is to be taken into account".
An important aspect of globalization is the liberalization of world financial markets, one of the most vivid examples being the introduction of a common European currency and corresponding changes in the mechanisms of corporate management. Considering this, one of the Forum's section was devoted to the topic "Globalization: the problems of economic cooperation and corporate management". The section meeting was held jointly by the Federal Securities Commission of Russia (RF FSC) and the RF Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
At the section meeting Deputy Chairman of the Federal Securities Commission Gennadi Kolesnikov emphasized in his presentation "The code of corporate behavior, prepared by the RF FSC" the undoubted importance of the practical application of the principles of corporate management. This idea was met with support from other participants. The practical application of corporate management standards by Russian companies was discussed in the presentation of Polina Kalnitskaya, legal adviser of the International Financial Corporation: "The review of the practice of corporate management at Russian companies".
The section also focused on the foreign experience in the sphere of corporate management. In particular, Executive Vice-President of NYSE Richard Bernard noted that in the context of integration processes it is very important to work out common standards of work on financial markets. Here, exchanges play an active role by developing listing standards and requirements to the rules of corporate management and accounting. Investors' confidence will depend on the quality of common standards in the integrated space. NYSE sets the standards of corporate management for companies, which have traded on it for over 100 years. Today, NYSE is again leading in the development of new standards of corporate behavior. One should not confuse the management of exchanges themselves with corporate management of large stock companies, issuing a great number of shares on the stock market. The legal adviser of NYSE Yelena Daly explained in detail the rules of NYSE, which are going to determine the corporate behavior of the world largest corporations.
The representative of the Chief Directorate for Economy and Finances of the European Commission Marco Fantini noted that EC could give CIS and other countries a good example of how to promote integration through securing the freedom of capital flow. There can be three models of transition to a unified financial space: individual (each country works out its own way to enter the union), collective (common approaches are worked out, which are accepted by the majority of members with further encouragement of those "lagging behind") and, finally, intermediate (which implies the adoption of criteria and rules of the union, which are later adopted entirely by new members). Marco Fantini expressed his approval to the ideas of forming optimal currency zones within CIS and harmonizing CIS legislation in the area of financial law on the basis of EC experience.
Summing up the meeting, Vice-President of the RF Association of Lawyers Peter Barenboim said that the harmonization of legislation regulating financial markets implies the introduction of unified standards of work on CIS financial markets. It is important to take into account the standards of work on the financial markets of EC and other foreign countries. In future, it will be necessary to create the mechanisms of consultation on the problems of financial integration with the involvement of foreign experts.
