The article examines in detail the historical and theoretical approaches to the formation and development of the interstate law-making process. Starting from the period of the emergence of treaty rule-making in the Ancient East as a politically motivated process, the development of legal technology in the Middle Ages, the structure of the text of an international treaty and the method of drafting reservations is traced. The article analyzes the novelties of treaty technology (annexes, activity of conferences, procedural rules for registration) and the doctrinal processing of the international process in the New Time. The institutional contribution of the League of Nations and the UN ILC to the norm-setting technique and the bringing of international codistics to a new doctrinal-universal level are noted. The authors of the article formulate a number of features of the codification technique of treaty acts. The article analyzes the basic consensus approach to the legal process of creating norms of international law, which presupposes the traditional way of rule-making directly by the subjects of international law on the basis of the method of harmonizing the wills and positions of states. The authors also touch upon the cooperative way of developing regulations in modern international rule-making, mediated in the form of the creation of norms, initially devoid of binding force, in the process and as a result of the activities of international organizations and conferences. In the second part of the article, the authors rethink the most significant Western international legal theories and concepts (postmodernism in law, economic analysis of international law, communicative theory of interpretation of international treaties, etc.). The positions of American realist internationalists and the influence of the realistic school of law on the change in goal-setting in international rule-making are analyzed. Most modern concepts regard the essence and forms of international rule-making as a political, or at least a quasi-political process. The authors come to the conclusion that the “dialogical approach” widespread in rule-making will help the international legislator, already at the stage of developing an international agreement, to avoid a bias towards the politically “strong point in the treaty”.

The 2020 is rich in anniversaries: the world community celebrates the 75th anniversary of the United Nations (UN) and the 25th anniversary of the Fourth World Conference on Women, a mass meeting of more than five thousand participants in Beijing in 1995. A three-day special event is planned during the September Session of the UN General Assembly in New York (2020), dedicated to the celebration of “Beijing Plus 25”. At these meetings governments from around the world are expected to commit to speeding up and scaling up the promises made in the historic Beijing Platform for Action. And the last 2019 was marked by the fortieth anniversary of the most important document in the field of gender equality – the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women – CEDAW, which is rightfully widely known in the world as “The Bill on the Rights of Women” (1979). Anniversary dates increase motivation to comprehend the role and place of events and phenomena associated with them. Moreover, the UN theme and gender equality is a hot topic, which is due to two main circumstances.  On the one hand, the UN is a unique global organization that has a significant impact on international processes. On the other hand, the problem of gender equality is the basis of social stability, a condition for development and an instrument for creating the quality of life. Bridging the gender gap in all areas of life is vital to achieving sustainable development and fulfilling the promise of the 2030 Agenda. To achieve the sustainable development goals, it is necessary to ensure full and equal access for and participation in women and girls. Despite progress, women and girls are still systematically underrepresented as users and leaders in critical areas of human life. The fight against stereotypes and myths occupies a key place. There is a wide range of options available to address both the causes and symptoms underlying gender stereotypes and social norms. The emphasis on a sound strategy with a gender perspective is something that can contribute to achieving gender equality for the sustainable development of the civilized world, this is what the UN insists on.

The appliance of interdependence concepts in the International Relations studies can hardly be regarded as something new. However, slowing down globalization and rising international tensions even among partner or allied states make rethinking of these concepts relevant. The notion that interdependence may ease tensions was put under question and opposed by the idea that interdependence may become a source of conflict. Scholars also missed their focus on conceptualization of interdependence forgetting that it was not a product of globalization, rather a result of the Cold War era. Thus, it can be applied to relations not only between partner countries, but also rivals, as was in the case of the U.S.-Soviet relations. The dense fabric of bilateral agreements, institutions, and regimes in various fields (primarily in security domain) prevented superpowers from a destructive conflict. After the collapse of the bipolar world, both states tried to consolidate the legacy of interdependence by increasing cooperation, transferring relations from mutual assured destruction to sustainable partnership, from deterrence to security community. However, structural changes in world politics reshaped Russian-American relations. Unlike the Cold War period with its unique U.S.-Soviet interdependence model, which served as a necessary precondition for lasting peace, contemporary Russian, as well as American decision-makers do not tend to estimate cooperation between two countries as critical in terms of national security and conflict prevention. In contrast, they are more likely to treat bilateral relations as too costly and burdening. Moscow and Washington increasingly prefer to be unbound in achieving their short- or long-term political goals and choose the way of unilateral decisions and actions with no corresponding with the counterpart. These risky policies of mutual neglect increase the likelihood of future conflict between the two powers.

The article is based on the hypothesis about the transition of the development of international processes from the stage of uncertainty to the stage of the negative certainty – the increase and synergy of the impact of negative factors in the environmental, climatic, epidemiological, socio-economic, technological, and security spheres against the background of worsening geopolitical contradictions and confirmed by the crisis caused by the COVID19 pandemic. The article examines the dynamics of socio-economic and political development and the changing role of the Central-Eastern European region. Having strengthened their positions in the European Union through adaptation to EU policies and norms, by the mid-2010s the CEE countries began to pursue an increasingly independent course. By 2020 their policy became one of the factors hindering the further deepening of the EU integration, primarily in the foreign policy sphere, and the process of federalization of the Union. The analysis of the state of public opinion conducted in the article testifies to the dualism of the perception of citizens of the CEE countries of the EU membership. High support for the EU is combined with frustration at the partial loss of national sovereignty, which is actively used by nationalist political forces in the region. During the early months of COVID-19 pandemics the countries of the region performed better than the EU as a whole, which created prerequisites for reformatting the position of the CEE countries in the EU. The enormous resources provided by the EU to Central-Eastern Europe to overcome the crisis and move towards sustainable development serve as a tool for even deeper economic and political integration of the CEE into the EU. Conditionality of support for the implementation of the EU strategies could have an impact on the CEE countries that is very similar to the period of their accession to the integration grouping and lead to the next stage of desovereignization. Meanwhile, for the European Union closer binding of the CEE countries allows not only to take another step towards federalization, but also to strengthen its actorness in world politics and the global economy.

Social outbreaks which have been characteristic of the political landscape of Latin America throughout the course of history of this region , reached their peak in the late 90s of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century. It can be argued without exaggeration that a special culture of mass protests has already formed in this part of the world. It functions as an independent “pressure mechanism” aimed at expanding rights and reducing historical injustice. In the fall of 2019 Latin America became the epicenter of social protests. Residents of the highest income inequality region of the world ceased restraining their discontent. It turned out to be impossible for the state authorities to react to such indignation by the usual repressive methods, thus they were forced to listen to society demands. In just a few months, Haiti, Ecuador, Chile, Bolivia were caught in a massive political crisis which was marked by massive street demonstrations. Gradually, a wave of public discontent swept over countries such as Colombia and Argentina. Although the root causes of these events in each country were different, several general trends stand out in all the chaos that is happening in Latin America. These trends can be traced in all foci of instability that broke out almost simultaneously in several countries of the region. This paper attempts to analyze the main factors that led to such widespread unrest. The goal of this analysis is to reveal the unresolved problems of the region. The author identifies the main reasons that together caused social explosions, and presents them in the form of a hierarchical pyramid: from the underlying economic instability, the crisis of the neoliberal development model, social inequality; the weakening of the political system and corruption, that are situated in the middle; until the very top of the pyramid – the “democracy deficit” and the influence of social networks. In this context, I divided the article into 4 thematic blocks, which will allow a systematic review of the most important causes that set a chain reaction in motion of protest activities, as well as an assessment of the further development of the socio-political situation in Latin America. A combination of regional and country approaches were applied in this paper to the phenomenon under study.

Railway transport have unique geopolitical and socio-economic importance for the Russian Federation, providing transport links between most regions, connecting the Asian and European parts with each other and some foreign countries, as well as holds together such a territorially large state as Russia in transport and socio-economic relation. In this regard, the problem of the development of transport systems in strategic regions of Russia, as well as the specifics of the regional policy of Russian Railways in the context of demographic problems and the geopolitical position of these territories, is becoming especially urgent. It is significant that the main connecting element of the infrastructure of the Asian part of the country is the rail transport. The research of the authors showed that the demographic and migration situation in the Russian regions is to a certain extent dependent on the density of the railway network. Then higher the density of railways, the more attractive regions in terms of migration are. And, on the contrary, in regions with a low density of railways, there is a steady trend of the migration outflow of the population. At the same time, demographic forecasts show that in the absence of promising infrastructure projects, negative trends in migration outflow and natural population decline are highly likely to continue, and, therefore, in the medium term, the population of the eastern regions will decline. In our opinion, for the effective spatial development of the territories of Siberia and the Far East, it is necessary to form a network of modern multimodal transport hubs and international transport corridors that take into account the climatic and demographic aspects of the development of the eastern territories of Russia. In addition, international competition for promising transport projects is constantly growing, which, given the low efficiency of the location of productive forces and the unused spatial potential of the Russian economy, becomes a significant geo-economic threat. The presented article examines the influence of the transport infrastructure level development for the system of settlement and trends in the socio-economic development of geostrategic territories of Russia; identified trends in the spatial and socio-economic development of the eastern territories located near the main railway lines; analyzed the demographic situation and migration trends in the eastern territories in the context of the personnel needs of the railway complex; strategic directions for the formation of personnel policy and replenishment of labor resources at Russian Railways have been developed. In addition, recommendations were developed to improve the efficiency of the spatial development of Siberia and the Far East based on the development of railway transport and promising projects for the formation of innovative transport systems.

The article is devoted to the problems of ensuring strategic stability and the task of a comprehensive study of the current situation with strategic stability, developing new approaches to it, taking into account modern realities in the context of a crisis in the international situation, especially in relations between Russia and NATO, Russia and the United States. According to President Vladimir Putin, as a result, the system of strategic stability in the world continues to degrade. The main factors of this aggravation are analyzed. The task is to develop new foundations for strategic stability and assess its global parameters. The new concept of strategic stability can no longer be focused solely on the priority of preventing nuclear conflict between major nuclear powers, but must also take into account the totality of factors that determine the security situation in the realities of the modern world order. An analysis of the long-overdue systemic shift in world processes is arguably impossible without a fundamental re-evaluation of the entire perception of international security, and, above all, the concept of strategic stability, which is the theoretical basis of military policy and theoretical approaches to arms control. Academic community needs to develop a fundamentally innovative strategy for arms control in the new environment. Whether this will be a bilateral Russian-American format or a multilateral arrangement is a question that needs to be clarified in the course of diplomatic consultations. The required concept should obviously be both interdisciplinary (covering with various methodological tools a number of sciences such issues as strategic nuclear weapons, non-strategic nuclear systems, missile defense, "prompt global conventional strike", hypersonic, cyberwarfare, space, beam, drones and other "exotic" types of weapons), and multilateral (that is, it should take into account the nuclear forces and nuclear potential of "third" countries, and not just the two traditional rivals – Russia and the United States).Such a concept of strategic stability should thus be much more "holistic" and comprehensive, covering not only the military potential of the leading powers, but also taking into account their political relations and divergences, the imperative of providing restraint and preventing major conflicts in the modern world. As such, it involves a comprehensive study of the crisis realities in the international system, primarily in the Russia–NATO and Russia–US “dyads” interrelationship against the background of the emergence of new nuclear weapons stakeholders. Among other things, these factors in the global balance of power make it impossible to proceed to a nuclear-free world in the foreseeable future. In this regard, the author sets the task for the expert community to formulate certain concrete ways to implement new conceptual frameworks for assessing the global parameters of the world system's evolution, and to develop pragmatic initiatives that can be taken to improve overall stability and interaction between the United States, NATO, Russia, and other emerging global actors.

Haass R. The World: a Brief Introduction. New York: Penguin Press, 2020. 349 p.