Стр. 22 - V

Электронное приложение к журналу «Международная жизнь»
Author : P. Dobrotvorsky
Research assistant, Security Department, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation
WE CANWITNESS TODAY the emergence of a new,
polycentric world order. Developing countries play an
increasing role in the world economy. This has brought
many analysts and politicians to the conclusion that the
era of the dominance of the world by the West, an
epoch that has spanned centuries, is coming to an end.1
It would be useful to see how this process manifests it-
self in principal trends and dynamics of development
of the legal map of the world.
Jurisprudence offers no single definition of "legal map
of the world," which today consists of national legal families comprising a total of more than
200 systems. The main points in dispute are how to segment the legal world map and what cri-
teria to use for the classification of legal families. French jurist René David said that there are
almost as many classifications as there are legal comparatists. Although there are disagreements
about how many legal families there are in the world, we can identify principal ones.
The uncontrolled streams of refugees give serious problems to EU nations. As a result, the
"Europe without borders" ideology is being revised. Many of the EU countries tighten border
control and take additional security measures. Meanwhile, the inflows of refugees fuel xeno-
phobia and intolerance in EU countries, which entails threats of frictions and chaos in interna-
tional relations.
These developments mean that action to prevent intercivilizational rifts and lay the basis for
partnership of cultures to ensure the harmonious development of humankind should be a top
priority in world politics. In the realm of law, there is an increasing need for interaction between
legal systems, which is usually achievable through integration or convergence.
Russia is a multiethnic and multireligious country with a history of ethnic and religious harmony
that is several centuries long, which enables our country to play a balancing role in the develop-
ment of world civilization, a role that is recorded in Russia's foreign policy doctrine.
To sum up, the legal map of the world is changing due to numerous civilizational, cultural, and
legal factors. Western legal families exert a dominant but not absolute influence on non-Western
families. Non-Western systems make technical borrowings from Western systems but maintain
their own identities and gain stronger global positions as non-Western countries play an increas-
ing role in the world economy. The legal map of the world is acquiring a multivector character
and increasingly reflects characteristics of the national legal systems comprising it. Each legal
family is unique, and this reflects the legal diversity of the world order.
Dynamics of the Legal Map of the World