Correspondence of the Current Russian Legislation to WTO Norms

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The article is dedicated to the consideration of Russia’s accession to the WTO from the point of view of legislation. Being a member of this international organization required complex work on changing the existing laws and adopting new domestic legal acts. Activity regarding checking laws and secondary acts which were supposedly already in line with the WTO requirements was large-scale. The very fact that negotiations on accession of our state to the WTO lasted for 18 years is quite eloquent. One of the reasons for such a lengthy process was the necessity to introduce a large number of changes to the Russian legislation. The significance of this work cannot be overestimated. The aim of the article is to find the answer to the question of how much the current Russian legislation accords with normative provisions of the WTO. In attempts to find the answer, the author conducted a thorough and substantial research of domestic and international legal acts applied in this field, as well as judicial practice and doctrine. In the spotlight of the article are such issues as the structure of the WTO law, its legal status and correlation within itself and rules of the Russian law. Classification and the subject of Russian obligations undertaken as a result of accession to the WTO are equally important. The presented results reveal some discrepancies and indicate the way of future development of the Russian legislation so as to bring it into conformity with the WTO rules. In addition, they could help in ensuring proper protection during resolution of disputes by the WTO judicial bodies. An example of such a problematic sphere is regulation of intellectual property rights.