Protection of Intellectual Property Rights in Investor-State Arbitration: Underlying Challenges and Perspectives

This article provides an analysis of existing international mechanisms for protecting intellectual property rights and concludes whether investment arbitration can be an effective forum for resolving intellectual property disputes. It focuses on an examination of the scope of intellectual property rights protection by bilateral investment agreements, as well as the specifics of the investment dispute resolution procedure. In addition, the analysis includes an assessment of the territoriality principle of intellectual property rights and its application in Ukrainian law, as well as an examination of international investment treaties concluded with Ukraine to determine the scope of protection afforded to intellectual property.

Resilience in the Context of the Implementation of the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement

This article examines the extent of the practice of resilience in the process of the implementation of the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement (AA). Also, it analyses the main legislative and institutional tools promoting resilience of Ukraine’s market integration with the EU. Two cases are considered in this study. The first case is the launch of negotiations on the EU-Ukraine Agreement on Conformity and Acceptance of Industrial Products (ACAA). The second case is an EU-Ukraine Trade Dispute on Export Woods Ban. In both cases the EU institutions and Ukraine display a high degree of flexibility to pursue a policy of resilience to achieve a high degree of EU Internal Market rapprochement. In the case of Ukraine, the institutional mechanism of the EU-Ukraine AA remains unused as a forum to discuss effectively and to find solutions for impeding problems in the bilateral cooperation agenda. Therefore, a coherent, transparent, and effective institutional cooperation framework in the bilateral EU-Ukraine relations is still needed.

“Publicity” and “Confidentiality in Arbitral Judiciary: Approaches to Understanding and Application

The growing interest in alternative forms of dispute resolution has prompted attention to the peculiarities of the application of the principles of publicity and confidentiality in the arbitration. It is determined that the observance of the principle of publicityof the legal proceeding is the basis for ensuring justice. However, approaches to the application of this principle in arbitration differ both from the point of view of researchers and within the framework of legal regulation at the national and international levels. Some believe that the application of the principle of publicity will destroy the features of arbitration as such. However, the presented article demonstrates other approaches. The position was supported that the principle of confidentiality should be distinguished from the concepts of “privacy” or “closed trial”. In this context, publicity is often compared to concepts such as “openness”, “clarity” and “transparency” of the proceedings. Of concern is some regulatory restriction on the application of the principle of publicity, which affects the level of awareness of the activities of arbitration courts among the public and lawyers who intend to use alternative forms of dispute resolution. It is hoped that such further research will help solve similar problems.

Ukrainian Constitutional Court: Attacks and Backlash

This article intends to analyze Ukraine’s Constitutional Court in the light of the tolerance interval theory and the backlash thesis, through a case study, which is, the decision issued on October 27, 2020, that held unconstitutional part of the powers of the National Agency for the Corruption Prevention (NAPC). Three comorbidities — particular conditions that weaken the court and render it vulnerable to attacks — in the Ukrainian system are presented: Ukrainian democracy, autocracies tendencies in the presidency, and lack of public confidence in the judicial system. Through the adoption of a Comparative Constitutional Law approach, an index measuring the impact of the ruling is developed and calculated, allowing a comparison of the consequences to other notable controversial rulings in the world. After discussing the findings, the article concludes with some reflections and predictions on the longevity of the Ukrainian Constitutional Court.

Promotion of Renewable Energy in the EU and Ukraine

This article discusses the main reasons for energy transition to RES and examines what is burdening this transition. The main purpose of this article is to overlook the reasons for promotion of renewable energy and main obstacles EU and Ukraine encounter with when heading towards zero-carbon society. The objects of the research were not chosen deliberately: Ukraine is a country which is adopting European aquis communitare and that is why it is extremely important to provide certain comparative research of these formations.

Public Funding of Political Parties and Rada Members in Post-Electoral Period

This study addresses the issue of the efficiency of public funding mechanisms. Using the Ukrainian experience as an example, the article covers recently introduced amendments and their effect on the overall efficiency of public funding. Further, the article analyzes possible ways for mitigating existing shortcomings of public funding mechanisms and outlines suggested solutions. Complemented with semi-structured interviews with current Members of Rada, the article strives to provide insights and suggestions to issues of political independence, political corruption, accountability, and transparency.

Constitutionalism within Times of Change: Authority, Society and Democracy

This article, following classical methodological patterns, as well as their evolution framework, identifies key features of the two most predominant constitutionalism traditions — political and legal, simultaneously drawing indispensable red lines with regard to correlation of the doctrine and a Fundamental Law itself. Respectively, the features have been rendered as the very elements of constitutionalism’s role within times of change — i. e., over the aforementioned time frames and transition states in between — whereas the doctrine’s capacity to answer so-called “questions of constitutionalism” constitutes its underlying response mechanism. The article addresses the phenomena of authority, society and democracy in their modern perception, and makes crucial points upon the constitutionalism’s effect on their sheer structures.

Symbols in the Ukrainian Public Discourse (Analysis of Presidential Speeches on the Occasion of Constitution Day)

This article develops the understanding of symbols as a certain type of signs, the meaning of which is established by agreement or habit. There is an opinion that symbols in public discourse are a reflection of values and anti-values of the society, which are formed in the process of mass communication. This article identifies the main features of the characters, including emotional engagement, attachment to a particular act of communication, as well informativeness. The types of meaning are determined, and the mechanism of nomination is explained. The article reveals the concept of semantic competition. M. Edelman’s opinion that value structures can be divided into mono-, bi- and multimodal — depending on the number of values assigned to key symbols. The presidential speeches delivered before the Ukrainian Constitution Day in 2017–2020 were analyzed in this article. Thanks to the content analysis of emotionally colored words, the symbols, which are characteristic for the speeches of P. Poroshenko and V. Zelensky, were identified focusing both on similarities and differences of Ukrainian values and anti-values. This article analyzes the nominations used by speakers to give meaning to key symbols. Aspects of semantic competition of the key symbols are defined here as well. It was revealed that during the tenure of President Poroshenko, other symbols circulated mostly in the Ukrainian public discourse than those during the presidency of V. Zelensky. Among the common key values for both presidents, we can find “Constitution,” “Constitution Day” and “freedom”. There is a semantic competition in their use. Both presidents underline the negative meaning of the term “parliamentary immunity.” Poroshenko expresses the threat using symbols such as “Russian aggressor”, “fifth column,” “corruption,” “Russian Empire” and “war.” On the other hand, V. Zelensky does not use symbols of external threat. It was found that the value structure formed by Poroshenko’s speeches showed signs of bimodality, and the one created by V. Zelensky’s speeches — multimodality.