Home | Databases | WorldLII | Search | Feedback Edited Legal Collections Data

Butler, William E. --- "Russian law" [2012] ELECD 1023; in Smits, M. Jan (ed), "Elgar Encyclopedia of Comparative Law, Second Edition" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2012) 777

Book Title: Elgar Encyclopedia of Comparative Law, Second Edition

Editor(s): Smits, M. Jan

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781849804158

Section: Chapter 61

Section Title: Russian law

Author(s): Butler, William E.

Number of pages: 12

Abstract/Description:

The term ‘Russian’ in the field of comparative law has referred at various times narrowly to the law of Kievan Rus (9th–11th centuries), the whole of the territory that came to be known as Muscovy (11th–16th centuries), the Russian Empire in its greatest territorial expanse (16th century to 1917), the former Soviet Union (1917–91) and, officially, the Russian Federation from 1991 to the present. Insofar as ‘Russian law’ refers generally to the law in force on these territories, it encompasses a vast number of subsystems, including the customary law of hundreds of ethnic minorities, the influence of neighbouring peoples and kingdoms (Byzantium, Central Europe, Tatar-Mongol, Islamic, Scandinavia and Eastern, Central and western Europe), the legislation (broadly understood) of principalities, khanates and other entities on Russian territory, and the full range of sources of law from top to bottom of the Russian Federation.