EDITORIAL

Dear reader!

Let me introduce the first Digital Law Journal issue of 2023.

In recent years, the Journal has become a leading expert, academic, and educational platform where the best academics and practitioners discuss the necessity and possibilities for legalizing digital technologies, as well as their features and prospects for implementation in the legal and regulatory field. It is no secret that digitalization has become a global phenomenon that is having a transformational effect on modern social relations. The process of using digital technology has long passed the stage of providing and serving. These technologies have already acquired an independent meaning, changing the architecture around them, and this applies to the legal realm as well.

Among the intriguing materials presented in the current issue is an interview with Anton Ivanov: distinguished lawyer, retired Chairman of the Supreme Arbitration Court of the Russian Federation, professor, and academic supervisor of the Law Department of the Higher School of Economics. It is obvious that, today, digitalization is a factor that invariably defines the agenda of lawmakers, judicial authorities, and legal scholars, a circumstance which even digital skeptics have to reckon with. The interview touches on prospective areas for research in the field of digital law, the role of the government in the digital age, the application of legal regimes to classical types of intellectual activity as compared to NFTs, the ethical aspects of technological applications, the importance of positive law in the digital environment, and much more.

The articles section opens with a unique statistical and bibliographic review of foreign dissertations on digital law (Maxim Inozemtsev, Artyom Nektov). Based on the comparative legal and statistical method, dissertations were compiled in a single list, and the main trends in choosing dissertation subjects pertaining to digital law were identified. A subject-thematic index of dissertations was created to allow PhD candidates to determine research topics and facilitate searches for sources. The main aspects of studying social relations pertaining to the application of new technologies is also outlined from the perspective of various branches of law.

I cannot fail to mention a study by Vladislav Ponamorenko, Gulmira Nasyrova, and Evgeniya Molotova on central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) as an element in the payment-centric model for global financial regulation. Besides examining the role of the international regulation of cross-border payments in ensuring limited integration of the Russian payment infrastructure within the global financial architecture, the authors also competently systematize the features and risks of this model.

Research on criminal law has not been neglected either. On reading the article by Elena Komova and Elina Sidorenko devoted to the aspects of criminal law with regard to digital technologies in the stock market, one cannot help but think about the need for an in-depth understanding of the current trends in the criminal use of digital tools if the associated risks are to be reduced.

I would also like to draw attention to an interesting study by Pavel Mingaleev on the practice of using electronic tools in arbitration proceedings. This work is the expert commentary of a legal practitioner, which analyzes the procedural violations that may occur when using digital tools, taking into account the judicial practice of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation, the Supreme Court, the Court for Intellectual Rights, and arbitration courts of appellate and cassation instances.

I warmly thank all the members of the editorial board, reviewers, editors, authors, and readers for their genuine interest and creative participation in developing our international research project.

Maxim I. Inozemtsev
Editor-in-Chief