Digital Technologies for Sustainable Development: Legal Challenges. Conference Review

This is a conference review of Digital Law Conference dedicated to the legal challenges of digital technologies for sustainable development. It was held at the Department of Business Law of Lomonosov Moscow State University (Russia, Moscow, November 26, 2020). The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) officially known as Transforming Our World: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development are 17 goals for international cooperation recognized by the UN. The purpose of this conference was to share, learn, and discuss main approaches to legal regulation of "end-to-end" digital technologies in Russia and elsewhere in the world, taking into account that implementation of the leading technologies should contribute to achieving SDGs. There has been considered the legal issues of the application of various digital technologies through the prism of achieving SDGs: the promotion of sustained, inclusive, and sustainable economic growth and digital technologies; the legal aspects of democratization of access to financial markets and tokenization of economy; the legal issues of implementation of the Internet of Things; the legal support for sustainable industrialization and innovation using Artificial Intelligence and other digital technologies; the use of digital technologies to promote an open society for sustainable development, access to justice for everybody, and so on. The contribution of digital technologies for sustainable development was well-illustrated, and many actionable solutions were proposed.

Russian Legal Framework for Digital Financial Assets

The article is devoted to the new Russian law on digital financial assets. The adoption of this law was an important step towards the formation of a legal framework for cryptoassets in Russia. Four types of legal framework models for crypto-assets around the world are identified: adaptation, fragmentary, experimental, and innovative. The Russian model of the legal framework for digital financial assets is close to an innovative model. The article analyses legal definitions of new legal concepts, such as "digital rights", "digital financial assets" and "digital currency". They represent different types of cryptoassets and are considered property under Russian civil law. A special legal status has been established forthe exchange operator of digital financial assets and for the operator of the information system in which digital financial assets are issued.The article describes the legal requirements for such participants in the cryptomarket, which are established to protect consumers from fraud and mismanagement. Particular attention is paid to the legal regulation of the issuance and circulation of cryptocurrencies, which the law names as digital currencies. Digital currency is not recognised as a legal means of payment in Russia.It can only be issued and circulated using the Russian information infrastructure.Based on the analysis of the new law, it is concluded that the Russian monetary authorities are not interested in establishing a complete and clear legal framework for participants in the cryptomarket.Their new initiatives aim to tighten regulation of the circulation of digital financial assets, especially digital currency.

System to Track Access in Digital Economy Systems

Leakage of protected data became an acute topic. The system tracking who, where and when has accessed a certain record of such a type of data could be a help in investigating vulnerabilities and weaknesses in defense. Also, it could name and point out responsible staff for the leakage with all legal and justice consequences. The paper considers an approach to build a system to register such kind of facts. The essence is to apply the distributed ledger technology, which is an open data storage. The system allows you to identify users who are trying to retrieve valuable information. At present, a technical and theoretical basis is ready for such solutions. Analysis of the current situation in the area under consideration shows that all the leading players in this segment of the IT market, in parallel with the development of mathematical models and methods of problem-oriented data mining, pay significant attention to the development of special software and hardware tools to support the performance of such tool solutions.

Digital Assets and Digital Inheritance

The paper reveals the concept of "digital inheritance" - a new term in law, which has become widespread in many legal systems and refers to the transfer of rights to digital assets in a broad sense. It is established that only turnable digital assets are subject to transfer by way of universal succession. It is shown that the possibility of digital inheritance by law and by will is limited depending on the object by the terms of the contract (a license, services, confidentiality) and/or the human constitutional right to privacy.

Digital Technologies for Sustainable Development: Dual Challenge of Sustainability and Inclusivity Perspective

This paper is a desk-review study and considers digital technologies for sustainable development: a challenge of sustainability and inclusivity. It takes a glance at the interaction of digital technologies and sustainable development, legal challenges of sustainable development. Digital technological inclusion of populace was based on mobile phones, which equally facilitate financial inclusion and help in reducing poverty. Digital technologies have ample of expanded opportunities for businesses and economic growth. Also, digital technologies have been successfully proved to be relevant. Digital technologies have changed the way SDGs are pursued and, fortunately, accelerated SDGs attainment, especially, when it is inclusive. Sustainability and inclusivity of digital technologies should be the challenge to be bordered about maximizing the gains from its adoption in promoting sustainable development. It is recommended that governments at all levels and institutions should be responsible for the provision of more digital technological facilities and infrastructures as well as for the provision of more basic amenities that would encourage investors in the area. Governments jointly with the private individuals should be prompt in taking actions (such as reporting fault) about safety and maintenance of the physical facilities and all other social capital, while the custodians of law (mostly lawyers – learned persons) should put under their surveillance any legal challenge that promotes exclusion and remedy such through the provision of law.

Extending Tax Sovereignty to the Internet Space

The article analyzes the extension of tax sovereignty to the Internet space, and describes the legal instruments that regulate the taxation of digital companies and projects. The purpose of the study is to analyze trends in the spread of tax sovereignty to Internet projects and companies, and to find an answer to the question whether it is possible to extend the tax jurisdiction of the state to the Internet. Using historical and legal research methods, the author analyzed the works of researchers on theory of law and taxation and conducted a content analysis of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) acts and Russian tax legislation.The author concludes that many states have just begun the process of extending tax sovereignty to the Internet space. Effective tax instruments have not yet been developed, but work is underway in this direction. The author defines this trend as one of the global challenges of modern law.