Issues of the Legal Regulation of "Foreign Agents" Activity (Comparative Analysis)

This paper presents a comparative analysis of a "foreign agent" concept in different states. The purpose of this work is to identify the problems of legal regulation of the activities of "foreign agents" as well as possible ways to overcome them. Based on the mentioned goal, the following tasks were defined by the author: 1. To conduct a comparative analysis of the concept of "foreign agents" in the legislation of the Russian Federation and other countries, as well as the objectives of its implementation; 2. On the basis of an analysis of foreign and Russian legislation and law enforcement practice to determine the difficulties faced by "foreign agents"; 3. To study the influence of restrictive norms on the activities of "foreign agents" and civil society in various states; 4. Based on the identified problems, to suggest possible ways to solve them. In the course of the study, the author comes to the conclusion that the result of the use of ambiguous legislative formulations in many cases is the authorities' outrage, inhibitionof civil society, isolationism, "chilling effect", which calls into question the need to maintain the existing norms on "foreign agents".