This book is a result of a two-year work on the project “The Legislation Principles for a Telecommunications Legal Regulation System in Russia” carried out by two partner organizations: the Moscow Media Law and Policy Center (MMLPC) and the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University in New York, USA. The project was part of Sustaining Partnership into the Next Century (SPAN) program administered by International Research and Exchange Board (IREX) and funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

The editor of the book is Professor Yury M. Baturin, Doctor of Law.

The book’s main part is the explanation of the strategy of legal regulation of telecommunications in Russia, as drafted by an initiative group of leading Russian experts in telecommunications’ legal regulation, set up by the MMLPC and chaired by Dr. Baturin to work out the draft statute on telecommunications. It traces the economic, technological, and political changes in the telecommunications sphere in Russia, compares the trends with the US and West European models. Some of the legal problems, such as licensing, tariffs, digital signature, Internet regulation, electronic commerce are discussed there separately. Data related to the status of legal relations and ad hoc practices of law-application as far as telecommunications operations in Russia are concerned are gathered and systematized as well. Ideas on how to improve legal regulation are put on by leading specialists in the field.

The second part of the book includes the draft of the Federal Statute of the Russian Federation “On Amending the Federal Statute “On Communications”” (or Federal Statute On Telecommunications). If adopted the bill would amend the Federal Statute “On Communications” of February 16, 1995 (# 15-FZ), so as to bring it in line with the changed that have occurred in the telecommunications sphere. This part also includes the explanatory memorandum to the bill, as well as an article-by-article commentary by the drafters.

The third part of the book — addenda — contains generalized and systematized data on telecommunications legal regulation in the USA and Europe. Russian translations of U.S., German, Lithuanian, Estonian law on telecommunications, as well as relevant news, translated from the monthly publication of the European Audiovisual Observatory are there. Month-by-month monitoring of the regulatory activity by the Russian authorities from January 1999 to April 2000 is collected in the addendum.

In addition, the book provides information accumulated at the three international conferences, in the course of research, in special publications — all done as part of the project.