Category of "Res Judicata" in Russian and Foreign Civil Procedure: Scope and Implication

The judicial decisions shall be binding in an effective system of dispute resolution. The minimum manifestation of a binding nature is that parties who are dissatisfied with the decision would not have the possibility to change the decision or cancel it in the usual way, without having extraordinary reasons for such review. These goals, including the finality of decisions, are achieved via implementing the category of res judicata which is a primary focus in this thesis, whereas res judicata first appeared in ancient Rome and literally means "resolved case". Res judicata rules exist in almost every legal order, not because res judicata law is equally valuable in different jurisdictions, but because it satisfies the same institutional needs. The subject of the study is the history of the development and establishment of res judicata law in various legal systems (common law, civil law, Russian law) in order to determine possible convergence and differences in normative regulation, as well as to identify existing trends that may affect the practice and limits of res judicata application in modern civil proceedings. The work contains a brief overview of the history of res judicata development in the countries of common and civil law, analyzes the exclusive effects of res judicata: the prohibition of reconsideration of the case (claim preclusion) and the prohibition of reconsideration of the circumstances of the case (issue preclusion), provides an overview of the existing options for implementing res judicata in some countries of the civil legal family, and compares res judicata and the institution of the legal force of a court decision in Russian regulation. According to the results of the study, the author concludes that the law of res judicata allows the judicial system of any country to function most practically and efficiently, and therefore makes the law itself more effective in general.