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International conference organized by "JurInfoR-MSU" Institute for Contemporary Education, “JurInfoR” center, the Criminalists and Criminologists’ Union (Moscow), and the U.S. Department of Justice, 20-21 May, 1997, Moscow

On combating new types of economic crimes in Russia and the United States

The Idea of Preparing a Russian-US Parallel Criminal Legislation Commentary

Sergei Vasilievich Maksimov

The Agreement for Cooperation in Criminal Law Matters signed on June 30, 1995 between the Government of the United States and the Government of the Russian Federation should be viewed as an essentially new phase in the development of our countries’ partnership in combating crime, first of all, organized crime.

The first year of the Agreement’s implementation undoubtedly has yielded positive results. At the same time, a number of problems have emerged affecting the implementation of this Agreement; further cooperation between Russia and the United States in combating crime will largely depend on how effectively those problems are resolved.

Problem One: a law-enforcement officer in Russia or the United States intending to request assistance from his counterparts in the other country in finding and detaining a suspect or in finding a suspect’s property, including property stolen from other persons, normally does not know whether the subject-matter of the inquiry is a crime under the criminal legislation of the other country (Article 3, item 3 of the Agreement).

Problem Two: there are significant differences between the Russian and US criminal legislation, even well-established concepts are interpreted differently. This may provoke mistakes by US and/or Russian colleagues leading to a waste of taxpayers’ money and low effectiveness of the newly-established channel for combating crime.

In view of the acute need to enhance the effectiveness of the US-Russian cooperation against crime and the prospect of having a bilateral agreement on mutual legal assistance with criminal cases, we propose that a Russian-US parallel criminal legislation commentary be developed as an annex to the Agreement. We believe that the commentary should provide interpretation of comparable criminal-law concepts within the scope of the Agreement by Russian and US experts.

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