Mondays 1-3 PM
January 12 through February 16, 2004
D.O.C. House
Article One of the 1993 Constitution of the Russian Federation declares that Russia is a democratic, federal, rule-of-law state. Participants in this course will discuss the extent to which Russia has made progress toward fulfilling the goals of this declaration. Have there been significant strides or should this statement be read as a mere aspiration?
This course will look at the recent history of Russia through the perspective of the law. The transition from the Soviet Union to the Russian Federation has led to an array of swift changes in lives of Russians. The market economy, shock privatization, the advent of jury trials, new legal institutions such as the bailiff service, changes in existing legal institutions such as advokatura, and the courts are a few of the many changes Russians have lived with in the Yeltsin and Putin eras.
The class will begin with a discussion of Russian history generally in relation to Russian law, followed by classes discussing single topics. Readings for the course will consist of articles which will be distributed in class.
Class is limited to 15 participants
Carl Yirka is Professor of Law and Director of the Julien and Virginia Cornell Library at Vermont Law School. He also serves as U.S. Project Director of the Vermont Law School-Petrozavodsk State University Law Faculty Partnership, which since 1998 has been partially funded by a Newly Independent States College and University Partnership Grant of the U.S. State Department. He has visited Russia more than fifteen times in the last ten years. In Spring of 2003 he taught "Law and Legal System of the United States" to second-year law students at Petrozavodsk State University.
