Eurasian Legal Systems in a World in Transition

Acknowledgements

The InHa¹ University Law School, its Legal Institute, its Big Data Centre, all located on the InHa University main campus in Inch’eon (South Korea), in association with the Inch’eon Bar Association, hosted the 6^th international conference devoted to comparative regional legal issues of Eurasia. The conference organisers express their sincere thanks to these institutions in Korea as well as to supporting institutions in other countries, namely the Lexfeim Research Centre in Law of Université Le Havre Normandie, the Institut Caennais de Recherche Juridique of Université Caen Normandie, the Juriscope Centre of Poitiers University as well as the Sefacil Foundation, France, and the Department of International Law of the Faculty of International Relations at Al-Farabi Kazakh National University in Almaty.

The three-day schedule of the conference could be considered short for the participants who enjoyed every minute and thank the organisers, or very long to the main InHa organiser, professor Hye-Hwal Seong, whom all colleagues thank whole-heartedly. Such an international conference can only come about through a series of plural good wills, as human beings are not only “social animals” (Aristotle) but above all “cooperative animals” (Seong). The organisers wish to thank also professor Tai-Uk Chung, who was the host of the 3^rd seminar in InHa in 2017, and a key to the success of the 2023 edition. The Law School Dean Young-Jin Jung was the overall responsible person, professor Won-Oh Kim generously supported the very fact that the conference could take place. Ms Kyung-Min Im of the InHa Legal Institute and Ms Hyun-Hye Kim of the Administrative Office proved invaluable contributors.

This conference organisers are happy to say once more how aware they are of the thriving encouragement received from all institutions named above as well as from numerous well-wishing colleagues as intellectual partners. Colleagues in Korea have trusted distant partners without a trace of hesitation. Colleagues in Kazakhstan have offered their participation from the onset when they hosted the very first international and interregional seminar in 2014. Colleagues from Romania, China, Russia, Spain and Canada have embarked upon the adventure not always with a life-vest but always safe-reaching their changing ports of call. These solid academic friendships, that now extend well over a decade, are a telling indication that Eurasia is in the making, and is virtually realised in terms of academic and human dimensions.

Indeed, the fact that is has taken only a decade, since the 1^st joint conference in 2014 in Almaty, for the original bilateral (Kazakhstan, France) and trilateral cores (with Korea) to have extended to four additional countries (China, Russia, Spain, Canada) is indeed an achievement, both institutionally and intellectually, looking at legal issues in Eurasia while mobilising all three sub-regions: Central Asia, East Asia, West Europe. We have been analysing “the new Eurasia”, in all its dimension, and we have done so through six books, all six published in Belgium, first in French (two) then in English (four), and offering to the readers about 200 texts written by about 50 colleagues.

To our knowledge, such a broad trilateral approach is indeed an undisputable reality stemming from our international seminars.

We hope that these publications are a just tribute for all support received.

1 The spelling InHa, with an upper-key H, comes from the original setting of the University being f[o]‌unded in Inch’eon city with large donations at the turn of the 50s from Korean settlers in Hawaï.

Welcoming address

How best to open such a fine book that originates in a thriving conference held in the Law School that I head in InHa University in Inch’eon, South Korea? Most probably by stating simply and sincerely that it is a pleasure to welcome you all to the 6th Kazakh-Franco-Korean International Law Conference and its resulting book.

As the Dean of the law school, it is indeed my pleasure to congratulate both the organisers and the participants for this pointed and au fait conference that addresses critical legal issues of the Eurasian world today. This conference brought together legal experts from France, Kazakhstan, China, Russia, Spain and Korea to discuss and explore Eurasian legal systems in a world in transition in terms of economic prosperity or disparity, and the return of politics in international law.

We are living in an era of unprecedented change, where rapid technological advancements, demographic shifts, and environmental challenges are presenting complex legal and ethical issues, which require our collective expertise, knowledge, and skills to navigate effectively through them. As legal scholars and practitioners, we recognise the significant role that legal systems play in shaping the future of our societies. Legal systems provide the foundation for social stability, political governance, and economic development.

This conference consisted of four sections which feature an impressive line-up of determined legal scholars and practitioner. The conference provided and the book will provide us with a strong opportunity to seek and deepen our understanding of the critical legal and political issues that affect us all. And by publishing the results of this conference, we are now able to share our insights and experiences with the wider international community.

On behalf of InHa Law School, I would like to thank professor Hye-Hwal SEONG for his untiring and good-hearted efforts in preparing for this conference. Well done!

Foreword

The Legal Institute at InHa University is happy to welcome professors Zhuldyz Sairambaeva, Pierre Chabal and Hye-Hwal Seong who made every effort to ensure that the international conference joining our three countries and beyond could be held safely despite various kinds of difficult circumstances. I express again, opening this book, my deepest gratitude to all participants and chapter authors.

The conference held in May 2023 and the ensuing book feature three countries and beyond these, four more countries as the momentum has picked up from the launching meetings of 2014, 2016 and 2017. The conference that started in Kazakhstan in 2014 was held in France in 2016, and in Korea in 2017 ended the first cycle. And the second cycle, which started in 2019 in Kazakhstan and 2021 in France, has concluded with a two-day conference in Korea on 11 and 12 May 2023.

Let us emphasise that it is meaningful of the efforts invested that such a rotating international conference should have consistently met and be published over the span of a decade, regularly, every two years, to share research results, and discuss the future of Eurasian legal systems in depth.

With the end of the COVID-19 pandemic, we indeed looked forward to a return to our daily lives, which is what this 2023 meeting represented after the 2021 one had to be held online. However, the outbreak of the Russian special operation in Ukraine presented another challenge for the international community. Sanctions against Russia did not have only the effect of isolating a country. In addition, it triggered a global food and energy security crisis and increased tensions between the US and China. Moreover, trade restrictions on food and energy are impacting the implementation of the Treaty on the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP). With the arrival of the new Cold War era, the role of cooperative organisations in regional security, such as the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), is being re-examined.

The present book sheds light on these issues, especially in its parts I, II and III.

Part IV of this book draws attention, beyond the crisis caused by war, to equally important issues to do with the 4th industrial revolution. Problems of data monopoly, personal information infringement, surveillance and censorship based on artificial intelligence and data are key evolutions to which the international community must respond in the near future. T The InHa Institute for Legal Studies established in 2020 the AI·Data Law Centre in order to focus on legal issues related to artificial intelligence and data. The chapters that make up part IV of the book are of particular interest to the AI·Data Law Centre, that is becoming a hub for research on artificial intelligence and data laws in the countries represented in this book.

This book is impressive, not only since it brings together 23 scholars from 8 institutions in 6 countries after the InHa Law School meeting, but also since it promotes cooperation and provide opportunities for joint research.

Preface

The Bar Association which I represent offers again its congratulations to the organisers of the May 2023 conference in InHa Law School and now co-directors of the book published from the presentations of last Spring. Only six years after the previous research meeting in InHa University on 2017, colleagues met again and as impressively as last time conducted two days of thorough discussions.

It is said that this rotating conference started with the proposal of professor Pierre Chabal of the University of the Havre in Normandy, back in 2013–2014. To me, Normandy is mainly the symbol of the“Normandy landings” during World War II. The Normandy landings were a decisive operation to end the Second World War. Ending the war marks the beginning of peace. Normandy is a symbol of peace. I believe that professor Chabal’s academic conference was a declaration of peace that no more wars should occur on this planet.

This declaration of peace has reached Al-Farabi University in Kazakhstan, the birthplace of the great philosopher Al-Farabi, whose philosophy is still being passed down to generations. The desire for peace and freedom in these two countries has reached InHa University Law School, located at the eastern end of the continent, beyond the Tianshan Mountains. InHa University Law School pursues justice.

I wondered today why professors from different countries, nations, cultures, languages, and universities gathered here. I believe there is only one reason for this. It is to create a world where universal values such as peace, freedom, and justice, pursued by humanity beyond such differences and ethnic boundaries, are alive and well.

The current world is said to be unstable in terms of commercial communities and security. I hope this academic conference has provided an alternative to this situation, as echoed in this book. We also live in the age of artificial intelligence and Chat GPT. However, we should not forget that all the roots of human thoughts are based on cultures created 2000–3000 years ago. I am endlessly envious and proud of professors who study and discuss such topics. I believe the continual development and progress of the world to be based on such efforts.

General introduction

This introduction briefs the main contents of the book. It aims to act as “intellectual appetiser” for whetting the reader’s readiness to digest its contents. The book gathers contributions about recent developments in Eurasia, especially over the past two years as a previous conference and book date back to 2021. During this tumultuous period, the defining event was the “special military operation” projected by Russia into Ukraine, from 22 February 2022 onwards. Paradoxically, no paper analyses this military operation as such. However, in the filigree of its pages, chapters deal with the outcomes of this unprecedented (at least since 1945) European war.

As the reader is about to confirm for herself or himself, the essential contribution of the book is to focus on conflicting dynamics between construction and deconstruction in international and regional relations. It is also to highlight the legal and regulatory challenges created by new technological developments in IT, AI, and data protection, globally and in Eurasia.

The book structure covers four main parts. Part I deals with the Challenges and turmoil in the region: when conflictual dynamics take over from Covid and jeopardise the context of cooperation. The recurrent theme here is the multidimensional crisis, that the world experiences today and its missing answers. The crisis originates either from ideologies of the old past (Moscow as Third Rome) or from actions or competition of great powers threatening the security globally or locally, or even from the inner core of the modern technological society (the problem of waste and its ecological impact).

It begins with Élise Frêlon’s chapter about the origin of the history of Moscow as the Third Rome, that is an ideological and religious justification of Russian imperialism over the centuries. It proves that the historical dimension of l’histoire longue is necessary, as expected, to make sense of the present.

The book continues with Philippe Gast’s analysis about the inability of international governance institutions such as the UN to answer to global environmental, energetic, economic, or social challenges and, most of all, security threats represented, among others, by Russian and Chinese action demands. The author proposes an agenda for reforming the global system of rules and institutions.

Kuralay Baizakova and Fatima Kukeyeva examine the risks and opportunities confronting Kazakhstan’s foreign policy in light of the geopolitical turbulence of 2022 in Eurasia. In doing so, they not only browse through the classic security challenges for Central Asia’s largest territory but they also point to the novel ones associated with the clearly more unilateral role that Russia has embarked upon, at least in the west of the continent.

Sagyngaliy Aidarbayev examines the systemic crisis of modern international law and its mechanisms (unveiled once again by the armed conflict of Russia into Ukraine), which seems unable to ensure international peace and security. The suggestion to reform the world security system is an old one but the author contextualises it as and inasmuch as necessary.

Confronted with the same problem of peace and security resulting from his evaluation that the world of the 21st century has entered into an era of hegemonic competition, Tai-Uk Chung is proposing a statute of Permanent Neutrality for the Korean peninsula as a solution for a post-unification moment, when that comes.

Yesbol Omirzhanov, Almagul Tusupova, and Binur Bertayeva consider that the Russian “special military operation” in Ukraine has changed the geopolitical attitudes of many countries and weakened regional initiatives such as the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) or even the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO). According to them, an answer to security and peace challenges in the region suggests a revival and upgrade within the new context of the idea proposed early in the 20th century: the Greater Turkestan. A union of Central Asian countries, a confederation of Turkic-speaking states, would include countries of Central Asia, Azerbaijan, and Turkey.

The last chapter deals with global security from a long perspective of global sustainability for human life on our planet. Young-Geun Chae examines the possibilities of transforming the current Linear Economy concerning waste (aligning the acts of “produce, consume and then throw away”) into a Circular Economy (composed of a closed loop of regeneration, where materials are endlessly repaired, reused, refurbished, and recycling), thus saving raw materials, reducing CO2 emissions and reducing the ecological imprint of humanity. Since raw material supply chains and waste flows are global, such a circular economy imposes changes on a worldwide scale.

Part II of the book deals with the Legal, political, and economic impact on commercial institutions (EAEU, EU…) and cooperation agreements (Silk Road,…). The focus here is on the economy, considered either as a contributing factor for cooperation (through international instruments or approaches such as OECD, EAEU, WTO, and Singapore Convention) or as a disruptive factor, able to break cooperation on a global level (Western sanctions toward Russia) or local level (the problem of Comfort Women vs. the relations between South Korea and Japan).

In this respect, Ilya Lifshits examines the global tax reform (transboundary taxation) legally imposed under the auspices of the OECD. He underlines radical changes in taxing multinational enterprises (cross-border taxation) within multiple pillars. The first pillar of this reform is income taxation, while the second is the introduction of a minimum global corporate tax. Such changes will emerge with the new multilateral Convention in 2023, and the international community will move toward an international tax regime, replacing the old tax-avoidance schemes.

Remus Titiriga examines the sanctions (mostly Western) related to Russian military actions in Ukraine. Regardless of the outcome of the War in Ukraine, the economic, political, and demographic damage from the sanctions (and the War itself) will have a particular effect on Russia. However, the indirect impact of sanctions has spread evenly and touched Europe and countries such as Japan, Korea, and Taiwan, which, for example, rely on LNG as their primary energy source. Western sanctions (especially by the US) against Russia are here to stay, as they also deter China from geopolitical competition and the South China Sea and Taiwan security.

The chapter by Zhuldyz Sairambaeva and Madina Nurtai compares the customs protection of intellectual property rights within the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU) with that of the European Union. The more rigorous EU mechanisms for combating counterfeiting and its adequate customs protection could inspire the EAEU solutions (by extending customs protection to intellectual property items such as patents, industrial designs, utility models, selection achievements, and integrated circuit layouts).