International Law Day

Traditionally, on the last Friday of June, the International Law Day took place at the International and Comparative Law Research Center.

The event was attended by more than 70 guests including Council of the International Law in XXI century Award, representatives of academia, public authorities, leading Russian companies, and non-profit organizations.

The event was opened by Victoria Manko, General Director of the Center, who told about the main areas and results of the Center’s activities .

Evgeny Zagainov, Director of the Legal Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and member of the International Law Commission, told about the Commission’s history and mission, and issues of its interaction with States. In addition, he dwelled upon the ongoing work of Commission, covering certain aspects of current topics under its consideration. After the lecture, all guests had an opportunity to ask questions and participate in the discussion.

Continuing the event, Victoria Manko expressed appreciation to the Center’s friends who had made a priceless contribution to the development of the Center’s Library: Bakhtiyar Tuzmukhamedov, Sergey Punzhin, Roman Kolodkin, Mikhail Galperin, Gary Born, Stefan Kröll, Sergey Dyachenko, Marcelo Cohen, Vladimir Tunkin, Center’s institutional partners — the Library of the Faculty of Law at the St. Petersburg State University, the International Court of Justice.

As a nice tradition, on the International Law Day, valuable books were donated to the Library of the Center by:

• Sergey Marochkin, Head of the Laboratory for International and Comparative Legal Studies at the Tyumen State University
• Ilya Rachkov, Associate Professor at Moscow State University of International Relations (MGIMO), Partner at Nektorov, Saveliev & Partners Law Firm
• Vladislav Tolstykh, Head of the International Law Department at the Novosibirsk State University.

Sergey Punzhin, Head of the Department of Legal Matters of the International Court of Justice, led the ceremony of the announcement of the results of the 5th annual competition for the best long paper on public international law, International Law in the XXI century Award. He told about the Award’s history and peculiarities of the assessment procedure. Members of the Award’s Council, Adel Abdulin, Sergey Marochkin, Ivana Hrdličková, Bakhtiyar Tuzmukhamedov, Alexander Khodakov, shared their impressions and gave advice to future participants of the competition.

As guidance, they emphasized the necessity of a serious approach to the choice of topics, while regretting that presented papers sometimes were more of a private law character and focused on minor issues. They also pointed out the importance of scrupulous work with sources, and fundamental works in particular, including those in different languages, and the significance of avoiding misinterpretations, second, and even third-round citation. Moreover, the Council of the Award noticed that compliance with grammar rules plays a crucial role in the decision-making process.

The International Law Day ended with the award ceremony at which commemorative prizes were bestowed to this year winners, Ruslan Kantur with his work “International Legal Grounds and Legal Character of Law-Making Powers of the United Nations transitional administrations”, and Olga Magomedova with “Performance Requirements: a closer look at the nature of the controversial concept”.

Congratulations to the winners and good luck to future participants of the Award!