An improvement and further development of the body of concepts and categories comprised by economic legislation in line with today’s economic development realities is a crucial task which becomes increasingly relevant in the context of European integration aspirations of Ukraine.

With the aim of ensuring the consistency of concepts and terminology, the quality of content and the logic of regulatory material, and preventing a dysfunction of legislative regulation, a separate article titled “Definition of Terms” is contained in the majority of legislative acts intended for regulation of various types of economic activity and (or) markets of goods (works, services) within which such activities are conducted. Legislative definition of terms (categories) should be made in accordance with the basic requirements of the legislative technique and with due regard for the trends in the development of objects, processes, activities, etc. which are elucidated (specified) by appropriate terms. If the rules of construction of legislative definitions are disregarded and if the legislator uses imprecise, abstract, and ambiguous terms (categories), this “blocks” the implementation of their instrumental function and, consequently, makes impossible a non-ambivalent (uniform) interpretation of legislative provisions and the development of a consistent law application practice. Changes to the content of legislative definitions (concepts) which are basic for a respective area of regulation, have a significant impact on the general vector of its regulation, and in some cases essentially change it, and sometimes, unfortunately, give rise to numerous contradictions in the regulation of this area.

The purpose of this article is to study the content of legislative definitions of the terms “foreign economic activity” and “foreign economic contract” with due regard for the approaches pertaining to international (foreign economic) nature of contractual relations specified in international conventions and treaties, as well as for the recent changes in the foreign economic activity legislation in terms of the expansion of the range of subjects of such activities.

As a result of the study, the author identifies problematic aspects of the qualification of foreign economic activity and foreign economic contracts which stem from the imperfections of legislative definitions of these terms, and offers some proposals for eliminating these imperfections.

Bibliography

Authored books

1. Strigunova D, Pravovoe regulirovanie mezhdunarodnyh kommercheskih dogovorov [Legal Regulation of International Commercial Contracts], t 1 (Justicinform 2017) (in Russian).

Edited books

2. Velyka ukrainska yurydychna entsyklopediia [The Great Ukrainian Encyclopedia of Law], t 15: Hospodarske pravo [Economic Law] (Ustymenko V ta in red kol, Pravo 2019) (in Ukrainian).

Journal articles

3. Artykutsa N, ‘Zakonodavchi terminy ta yikh vyznachennia’ [‘Legislative Terms and Their Definitions’] (2009) 90 Naukovi zapysky, Yurydychni nauky 39-44 (in Ukrainian).

4. Onyshchuk I, ‘Terminolohiia ta zakonodavchi definitsii u normatyvno-pravovykh aktakh’ [‘Terminology and Legislative Definitions in Statutory Instruments’] (2012) 6 Naukovo-informatsiinyi visnyk. Seriia: Pravo 155 (in Ukrainian).

Thesis

5. Rudenko M, ‘Pravove rehuliuvannia vnutrishnohospodarskykh vidnosyn’ [‘Legal Regulation of Internal Economic Relations’] (avtoref dys kand yuryd nauk, 2017) (in Ukrainian).