The Hague Convention on the Law Applicable to Trusts and on their Recognition and its Impact on the Concept of Trust in a Civil Law System

Trust is a legal concept widely used in common law states. However, trends of globalization and unification of legislation, as well as the development of the global capital market lead to a situation where continental law states for which the trust concept is unknown are increasingly faced with cases requiring the recognition of trusts created in accordance with the law of a foreign state. These processes have become the basis for the development of an international legal instrument, such as the Hague Convention of 1985 on the law applicable to trusts, and on their recognition. In turn, only a limited number of states, most of which belong to the Anglo-Saxon legal system, have ratified the 1985 Hague Convention. In this regard, it is necessary to establish the impact of this international legal instrument on both the states that are parties to the Convention and other European states. In this regard, this paper analyzes national instruments regarding fiduciary ownership in such countries as Germany, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, France and Russia. According to the results of the study, it was concluded that the Hague Convention of 1985 is a unique instrument for the development of trust legislation, as it helps to globalize and unify legislation in this area, which makes it necessary to develop similar fiduciary concepts, including in states who have not ratified this Convention. Of course, each state is at an individual level of development of such structures, however, the global trend for the implementation of fiduciary concepts or further development of existing ones is generally recognized. This work consists of three chapters. In the first chapter, the subject of the study is a general overview of fiduciary structures similar to trust available in the continental law system, a review of the provisions of the Hague Convention of 1985, as well as problems associated with the implementation of the trust in the continental law, is made. The second chapter is devoted to the peculiarities of regulating the institutions of fiduciary property in countries of continental Europe. This chapter has a semantic division into two paragraphs. The first paragraph is devoted to the study of fiduciary ownership institutions in states that are parties to the 1985 Hague Convention. The second paragraph is devoted to similar constructions in states that have not signed or ratified this Convention. The third chapter is devoted to the study of fiduciary structures in the Russian Federation. The first paragraph of this chapter explores the correlation between fiduciary management and trust. In the second paragraph, the subject of research is the correlation between the testamentary foundation and the trust. The third paragraph is devoted to the problems arising from the recognition of foreign trusts in the Russian Federation. One of the main findings of the study is evidence that the 1985 Hague Convention has an impact on both the participating states and other states. This is due to the “soft power” of the convention, which sets global development trends, which all states must follow in order to maintain the international attractiveness of their legal institutions.