The article is devoted to the principle of mutual recognition of judicial decisions and overcoming conflicts of criminal jurisdiction of the EU member states. The union was created in 1977 and the states got together to overcome economic and other important issues of development. Moreover, the growth of terrorism clearly showed that the internal security of the EU member states should be ensured not only through measures taken at the national level. Certainly the existing diversity of legal systems of the EU countries, together with the European guarantees of freedom of movement, have inevitably led to a clash and conflict of criminal jurisdiction of the EU member states. The author analyses the steps and documents of the process of implementing the internal security (the Green Paper on Conflicts of Jurisdiction and the Principle of ne bis in idem in Criminal Proceedings, agreements and protocols) and also the latest tools for mutual recognition.

   The article is centred around the genesis of the rebus sic stantibus clause in the Polish civil law. The beginnings of the clause should be traced back to the post-WWI period, when Poland was in the process of restoring its independence, and to the monetary inflation that accompanied that process. The regulation of the rebus sic stantibus clause was also materially impacted by the decisions of Polish courts, particularly by the judgement of the Polish Supreme Court of 25 February 1922 in the Fliederbaum–Kuhnke that turned out to have an international reach. As a result, the Regulation of the President of the Polish Republic of 14 May 1914 on the Revaluation of Private and Legal Liabilities, also referred to as Lex Zoll, was issued in connection with the monetary reform. After that, the work on the draft of the rebus sic stantibus clause was commenced by the Codification Commission of the Republic of Poland. Ultimately, the clause was incorporated into Article 269 of the Polish Code of Obligations of 1933, and it was practically applied shortly after the end of World War II. The rebus sic stantibus clausewas not provided for in the Polish Civil Code of 1964 until its 1990 amendment. The reintroduction of the rebus sic stantibus clause to the Polish civil law was the result of Poland’s inflationary monetary policy adopted in 1980^s.

   Comparative research is one of the promising areas of development of modern jurisprudence. Russian and Armenian law have common roots, with their shared historical background as members of the continental (Roman-German) legal family. The authors of the present paper compare the principles of administrative proceedings in Russia and Armenia and propose a positivist classification of the relevant principles. The authors analyze the Russian and Armenian codes of administrative proceedings and make a comparative review of them, highlight some of their problems and the difficulties of realizing these norms in practice, and suggest ways to improve the codes. The constitutional principles of administrative proceedings, some of which are duplicated in codes while some are not, are also reviewed. It is hardly worth mentioning that the extraction of constitutional principles from a particular branch of law is always difficult as the legislators of Russia and Armenia are not guided by the concept of “principle” in the drafting their respective Constitutions.

   The article describes the current rules and case law on drawing up wills in Russia. The author argues that the literal approach and the lack of stop-gap rules are hardly compatible with succession law policy. Due to the problem of correct interpretation of a will, we cannot talk about real testamentary freedom. The situations with wills are usually complicated because the authors are absent. As for interpretation of wills, the contemporary landscape shows that most of European countries prefer intentional approach: when the interpreter would take into account the indirect extrinsic evidence. Speaking of Russian approach, the priority is given to the literal interpretation: the methodological recommendations on drawing up the rights of inheritance clarify that in order to understand the literal meaning of words and phrases in the will, their plain meaning should be determined, and when interpreting the legal terms, their meaning set forth by the legislator in the corresponding legal instrument shall be used. On the base of comparative research and empirical experience “new” intentional approach is proposed.

   The article is devoted to legal obligation and its influence as a legal institute. Any legal obligation becomes a substantive duty only when it is supported by the possibility and necessity of ensuring it through execution. The author presents different positions of scholars in the doctrine. The article outlines the mechanism of civil law protection of the state as a legal structure in civil legal relations; it indicates the specifics of the mechanism under consideration, its essentially complex nature; it talks about government officials minimizing the risks and the cost on the part of the state. The provisions of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation are shown as well. The analysis allows us to consider the theory of civil law protection of the state as a single system of specific elements and to argue that the current state of the mechanism for exercising civil liability of the state with certain attempts to reform it requires clarification.