Nonprofit Organizations - Foreign Agents: 242 Experience of Russia and Other CIS Countries

The authors compare the existing control mechanisms for the funding from foreign sources that nonprofit organizations operating in some CIS states, in one capacity or another, receive. As a result of the research carried out using logical, dialectical, systems, functional, special legal, and comparative legal methods of scientific knowledge, the authors come to the conclusion that the range of measures taken by the CIS states to protect their sovereignty by means of introducing control for the activities of structural divisions of foreign and international nonprofit organizations, as well as national nonprofit organizations receiving funding from foreign sources, is extremely heterogeneous and can vary: the mandatory submission of reports on the use of funding from foreign sources (Kazakhstan and Tajikistan), the prohibition to store funds and other valuables in banks and non-bank credit and financial institutions located on the territory of foreign states (Republic of Belarus) prior to the mandatory state registration of foreign grants (Turkmenistan), any agreements on the provision of services or the performance of work at the expense of foreign financial sources (Azerbaijan), the establishment of a de facto ban on anonymous donations from foreign financial sources, while simultaneously fixing strict limits on the amount of such donations (Azerbaijan), or the obligatory approval by the authorized state body of the possibility of obtaining funds and property from foreign sources (Uzbekistan). Russia, in terms of the above measures, went much further: in fact, a whole legal institution of a “foreign agent” was created, which covers an extremely wide range of participants and, at the same time, is not devoid of disadvantages that are very significant in terms of the implementation of constitutional rights and freedoms. To eliminate the disadvantages, the authors propose to legalize nonprofit organizations that conduct political activities in Russia into a separate category and to simultaneously specify what should be understood by political activity, without using evaluative categories. Further, for this kind of nonprofit organizations, it seems expedient to set limits on receiving funding from foreign sources, the obligation to regularly report on the expenditure of this kind of funds, the obligation to register foreign grants, and the obligation to coordinate with the authorized bodies the receiving of funding in excess of the established limits.

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