Russian Law Talks 3 recording now available!

Russian Law Talks 3 – Foreign Agents 2.0: Civil Society, New Legislation on the NGOs and Educational Activities in Russia – recording now available!

 

The seminar ‘Russian Law Talks 3 – Foreign Agents 2.0’ was held on the 19th of April 2021.

Watch the seminar here:

https://www2.helsinki.fi/fi/unitube/video/80bc7341-0baa-4e44-b1b2-4c2d6595a02c

The original description of the event:

At the turn of 2020-2021 a series of bills broadening the oppressive “foreign agents” legislation, first introduced in 2012, were passed by the Russian State Duma. The new laws expand the scope of individuals and groups that can be designated “foreign agents,” introduce new restrictions and registration and reporting requirements, and oblige the media to note the designation whenever they mention these individuals or groups. Educational activities — which are now defined as any activities aimed at «intellectual, spiritual, moral, creative, physical and professional development of a person» shall be controlled by the government.

A team of NGO representatives and scholars will discuss the situation and the prospects of the Russian civil society under the new restrictive legislation.

Speakers

Alla Chikinda, Resource center for LGBT

Alla Chikinda is a communications manager in Resource center for LGBT based in Yekaterinburg, Russia. It is one of the strongest local LGBT organisations in Russia, working since 2014. Alla is responsible for external communications, notably with the media on local, national and international level, as well as potential partners and allies for Resource center. In 4 years Alla has established strong links with many well-known media and ensured that every year there are over 150 mentions of Resource center in various sources. Among the media outlets writing about the work and achievements of Resource center are Novaya gazeta, Takie dela, Radio liberty, Meduza and BBC Russian service. Ms Chikinda has also contributed to the visibility of Resource center among NGOs in Yekaterinburg and its region, taking part in and organising various  talks, podcasts and other public events.

https://www.facebook.com/alla.chikinda/

Diana Barsegyan, communications specialist at Nasiliu.net Center

Diana graduated from The Russian State University of Cinematography with a degree in screenwriting in 2018. She became an employee of the ‘Nasiliu.net’ Center in the summer of 2020. During her work, she participated in organizing discussions for experts in the field of domestic violence, organized awareness campaigns about the problem of domestic violence,  participated in a promo campaign related to the release of the center’s own clothing line. Diana took part in the filming of a video about gender equality ‘Girls are such girls’, the video can be seen on the Center’s YouTube channel. Diana also regularly communicates with journalists on behalf of the Сenter: during her work she gave comments or interviews to dozens of newspapers and magazines.

https://www.facebook.com/diana.endtitles

Tatiana Glushkova, HRC “Memorial”

Tatiana Glushkova holds a degree in law from Lomonosov Moscow State University (2011). She works as a lawyer at Human Rights Centre “Memorial” (Moscow, Russia). In this capacity she represents applicants before the European Court of Human Rights in cases brought against Russia on matters including right to life, freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, right to respect for private and family life, right to non-discrimination. Tatiana engages in international advocacy before the UN and the Council of Europe bodies. In 2018 she was elected as a board member of HRC “Memorial”.

https://www.facebook.com/glush.tat/

Maria Davidenko, Assistant Professor of Sociology, Higher School of Economics, Moscow

Maria Davidenko is an Assistant Professor in the School of Sociology at Higher School of Economics (Moscow). Her research interests include gender inequality in organisations, state-civil society relations, and non-state actors’ participation in policymaking. Maria’s current research project examines possibilities and limitations for participation in policymaking for Russian NGOs working with the issue of domestic violence. Maria is also a member of a project group “Women and gender in public administration” (at HSE) that organises seminars and carries out research on gender segregation in public service as well as problems faced by women who seek to climb the career ladder in public administration, including gender stereotypes, the need to balance work and family responsibilities, and sexual harassment at work.

https://www.hse.ru/en/org/persons/202139458#sci

Watch the seminar here:

https://www2.helsinki.fi/fi/unitube/video/80bc7341-0baa-4e44-b1b2-4c2d6595a02c

DRL Newsletter Jan (2021)

Development of Russian Law

Uutiskirje Tammikuu (2021) / Newsletter January (2021)

 Events

1) Open position for a post-doctoral re­searcher in the ‘Toxic Crimes Pro­ject’ on environmental protection during armed conflict, Erik Castrén Institute, University of Helsinki, Finland

2) What Happened in Russian Law in 2020? Now available to watch on Unitube!

3) Una Europa Global Governance Research Award competition

4) We congratulate Dr. Elena Cirkovic on her new appointment

5) Call for papers: Development of Russian Law XIII Conference

 Public talks: 

6) Marianna Muravyeva talks ‘Pandemic and Gender-Based Violence’ in the webinar ‘Rights, Democracy and Equality in the Shadow of the Pandemic’

7) Russian Law Talks announcement

 Publications

8) Violations of the Right to Peaceful Assembly for Women and Girls in Russia from 2010 to 2020

9) New laws on restrictions of freedom of peaceful assembly

10) Marianna Muravyeva’s book on Parricide and Violence against parents is out

11) Alexander Kondakov’s recently published article ‘Sex, Alcohol, and Soul: Violent Reactions to Coming Out after the “Gay Propaganda” Law in Russia’

1) Open position for a post-doc­toral re­searcher in the ‘Toxic Crimes Pro­ject’ on environmental protection during armed conflict, Erik Castrén Institute, University of Helsinki, Finland

Dear colleagues,

We are looking for a postdoctoral researcher who will join our research group on environmental protection during armed conflict, the “Toxic Crimes Project” (funded by the Kone Foundation and Academy of Finland), for a 26-month period starting March 2021 (or, as agreed). The grant-funded postdoctoral researcher will receive a monthly grant directly from the Kone Foundation and will be hosted at the Erik Castrén Institute of International Law and Human Rights, Faculty of Law, University of Helsinki. We will also consider applications from scholars who wish to work from their current institution. The deadline for applications is 31 January 2021. 

We would appreciate it if you could share the vacancy with eligible candidates or post it to relevant mailing lists. Please, find the full vacancy here: https://www.helsinki.fi/en/news/society-economy/open-position-grant-funded-post-doctoral-researcher-in-toxic-crimes-project-funded-by-the-kone-foundation and more about the project here:https://www.helsinki.fi/en/researchgroups/toxic-crimes

Our project combines social scientific and legal approaches to examine how activists, lawyers, and other experts work against environmental destruction and pollution as a consequence of war and conflict. In particular, the project examines how experts, lawyers, and activists (1) advocate for an international legal framework to protect the environment during armed conflict, (2) push for criminal accountability for polluting the environment during conflict, (3) promote the idea of the environment as a subject and a victim of war, and (4) develop the practice of environmental monitoring and risk assessment in ongoing conflict zones, for instance, the conflict in Eastern Ukraine, among other cases.

2) What Happened in Russian Law in 2020? Now available to Watch on unitube!

The last event of 2020 for the Development of Russian Law project was “What happened in Russian Law in 2020?”, which took place via Zoom 18.12 at 16.00-18.00 CET time (Helsinki). Leading legal experts shared their analysis of the past year’s Russian legal development.

(Unfortunately, the first speaker’s, Grigory Vaypan’s, presentation was not recorded and so the first speaker in the video is Kirill Koroteev.)

Watch the seminar here:
https://www.helsinki.fi/fi/unitube/video/f7f84b74-f518-4aca-9e5a-76b4680d011b

3) Una Europa Global Governance Research Award competition

The newly launched Una Europe network is inviting submissions from researchers for an interdisciplinary competition on global governance. The papers should address global governance regarding one or more of the following policy areas: Free Trade Agreements, trade policies, migration policies, value chains, climate change, cooperation politics, impact of global pandemics on the life of citizens or methodological approaches to investigate the mentioned and related issues.

Abstracts need to be submitted the latest by 26 February 2021.

Please see the attached flyer for further details and the competition schedule.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YaZje_pN4xfjrOalzi5t_amMfBwXIBs2/view?usp=sharing

4) We congratulate Dr. Elena Cirkovic on her new appointment

Dr. Elena Cirkovic was appointed as a permanent member of the permanent committee on space traffic management by the International Academy of Astronautics (IAA). She will be representing the ‘non-western/anticolonial’ perspective.

Read more here:

https://iaaspace.org/about/permanent-committees/#SA-PERMCstm

5) Call for papers: Development of Russian Law XIII Conference

The Faculty of Law in cooperation with Aleksanteri Institute of the University of Helsinki is pleased to announce the annual conference in Development of Russian Law, which will take place in Helsinki on October 19-20, 2021. This conference continues the series of workshops, seminars, and conferences in Russian law, organized by the Faculty of Law since 2008. This annual event is devoted to discussions of the new and important topics within the field of Russian law and legal studies.

Read more here:

https://www.helsinki.fi/en/conferences/development-of-russian-law-xiii

6) Marianna Muravyeva talks ‘Pandemic and Gender-Based Violence’ in the webinar ‘Rights, Democracy and Equality in the Shadow of the Pandemic’

Marianna Muravyeva held the talk ‘Pandemic and Gender-Based Violence’ in the webinar ‘Rights, Democracy and Equality in the Shadow of the Pandemic’.

The webinar was organized by INEQ Associate Professor of Law Security and Privacy Dorota Gozdecka (UH) in cooperation with the ANU Gender Institute (Australian National University) on 31.8.2020.

Watch Marianna Muraveya’s talk here:

https://www.helsinki.fi/fi/unitube/video/4437fa0f-667d-42c8-b414-26cca0a36834

7) Russian Law Talks announcement

Russian Law has been changing rapidly in the past decade. Last year, the year of the pandemic, Russia had its first constitutional reform since 1993 with constitutional amendments having a profound impact on the present and future of the country. Following the Constitution, other legislation has been amended to further cement the path to an authoritarian sovereignty and neoconservative ideologies. Aiming to provide introductory information of these changes, discuss their impact in depth, provide an analysis of law and its influence on society, politics, economics and environment, the Development of Russian Law program commences the new series of talks – Russian Law Talks. Every month, we will invite experts and scholars from various disciplines and sectors to discuss the most important and current events in the Russian Legal life.

Read more here:

https://blogs.helsinki.fi/developmentofrussianlaw/category/russian-law-talks/

8) Violations of the Right to Peaceful Assembly for Women and Girls in Russia from 2010 to 2020

(On behalf of OVD-info)

We prepared this review in June as a response to a request from the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and Association: at the 75th session of the UN General Assembly in September 2020, he is preparing to present a report on how women exercise their rights. Our text consists of two parts: the first — answers to the questions of the special rapporteur, the second — a description of the problems and examples which illustrate them.

Read the report here:

https://ovdinfo.org/reports/violations-right-peaceful-assembly-women-and-girls-russia-2010-2020#1

The same in Russian:

https://ovdinfo.org/reports/zhenshchiny-i-svoboda-sobraniy-v-rossii

9) New laws on restrictions of freedom of peaceful assembly

(On behalf of OVD-info)

Dear friends,

On December 23 the State Duma of the Russian Federation adopted a multitude of bills, some of which are aimed at regulating the exercise of the right to freedom of peaceful assembly. We have prepared an analysis of the main proposals on restricting freedom of peaceful assembly and expression in Russia.

Read our analysis

It features an examination of eight bills, six of which are already adopted by the State Duma deputies and by the Federation Council, as well as signed by the President, the rest passed first reading.

Six bills were submitted by deputy Dmitry Vyatkin and are referred to as “the Vyatkin Package”. These bills involve amendments to the Federal Law “On assemblies, rallies, demonstrations, marches and pickets” (namely they complicate the procedure to authorize public events, introduce additional restrictions for journalists covering such events and new territorial restrictions for holding assemblies, etc.); to the Russian Code of Administrative Offences (namely increasing current punishments and introducing the new ones for organizers and participants in public events as well as journalists); and to the Russian Criminal Code (increasing the liability for blocking roads and disorderly conduct).

Two other bills are written and submitted by several deputies and senators. They propose amendments to the Federal Law On Information and the Code of Administrative Offences, obliging owners of social media platforms to block information on public events “that are held in violation of the established procedure” and establishing administrative liability for non-compliance.

Earlier, lawyers and analysts from OVD-Info and Moscow Helsinki group have prepared a detailed analysis of some of the legal problems and contradictions concerning these legislative changes.

Read our analysis:

http://kqq7.mjt.lu/lnk/AM0AAI4WNYMAAcn2oVYAALg6KPIAAYCrSrUAJOF0AAlnmgBf7LlZbHo7rOJYS1CLIHFfBtICcAAI6gA/10/SsdA0jXWUVY_t-OZhUM1Ug/aHR0cHM6Ly9vdmRpbmZvLm9yZy9zaXRlcy9kZWZhdWx0L2ZpbGVzL2ZpbGVzL2ZvYV9iaWxsc19ydXNzaWEucGRm

 and detailed examination of the bills:

http://kqq7.mjt.lu/lnk/AM0AAI4WNYMAAcn2oVYAALg6KPIAAYCrSrUAJOF0AAlnmgBf7LlZbHo7rOJYS1CLIHFfBtICcAAI6gA/11/QDFtW757TB-oy5w-rfBT9A/aHR0cHM6Ly9vdmRpbmZvLm9yZy9zaXRlcy9kZWZhdWx0L2ZpbGVzL2ZpbGVzL2ZvYV90YWJsZV9ydXNzaWEucGRm

10) Marianna Muravyeva’s book on Parricide and Violence against parents is out

Marianna Muravyeva’s book on Parricide and Violence against parents is out:

https://www.routledge.com/Parricide-and-Violence-against-Parents-A-Cross-Cultural-View-across-Past/Muravyeva-Shon-Toivo/p/book/9781138048577#:~:text=Author(s)%20Reviews-,Book%20Description,a%20global%20overview%20and%20comparison

11) Alexander Kondakov’s recently published article ‘Sex, Alcohol, and Soul: Violent Reactions to Coming Out after the “Gay Propaganda” Law in Russia’

I’ve just got a new article published. Perhaps, it’s worth including it in the forthcoming newsletter:

Alexander Kondakov and Shtorn, E. have published a new article (2021), Sex, Alcohol, and Soul: Violent Reactions to Coming Out after the “Gay Propaganda” Law in Russia. The article was published in The Russian Review, 80 (1): 37-55.

Read the article here:

https://doi.org/10.1111/russ.12297.

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Development of Russian Law Team

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