The modern land reform in the independent Ukrainian State, which has been launched at the end of the XX century, created a real impetus for dynamic development of land legislation and law in Ukraine. It revived not only the right of private, communal and State ownership to land, but also facilitated the emergence of new forms of land use and the development of the respective land law institute, with the concession of land-use right use arising as its part. However, formal enshrinement of land plots availability under the concession terms in the Land Code of Ukraine in an overly limited wording did not entail the spread of concession land relations in the country.

This article aims at making a systematic review of new provisions of the concession legislation with regard to the use of land plots as objects of concession. Resting upon a scientific analysis of the use of concessions in land relations, the author highlights the essential features with which concession relations are manifested in land law, and the specifics of their enshrinement in land legislation. The author believes that a radical renewal of concession-based land use for purposes of public-private partnership opens up broad prospects for ensuring rational use of the country’s land resources and for attracting investment in order to improve the efficiency of concession-based land use. At the same time, the author hopes that this will attract the attention of the scientific community and practitioners to the objective need for development of concession-based land use, which should become the foundation for establishment of concession relations in other areas of legislative regulation of natural resources use in Ukraine.

The author demonstrates that in contrast to the classic land lease use, concession use of land resources is a special type of fixed-term ownership and use of Stateor municipally owned land plots exercised on the basis of a concession contract. However, not all subjects – parties to concession relations specified in the Law of Ukraine “On Concession” may act as concessors of land plots. They can only be representatives of land owner in the person of public authorities or local self-government bodies authorized to provide Stateor municipally owned land plots for use, particularly, to transfer them for concession based on decisions of respective representative bodies.

Concessionaires in concession relations, including concession-based use of land plots for public-private partnership, can be legal entities which received objects in concession according to law and are a party to a concession contract. Land use concessionaires may also be economic associations, holding companies and other economic structures, enterprises, institutions, organizations and economic entities which have legal capacity and competence with respect to participation in land relations.

Bibliography

Authored books

1. Brandt B, Inostrannye kapitaly v Rossii. Ih vlijanie na jekonomicheskoe razvitie strany [Foreign Capitals in Russia. Their Impact on Economic Development of the Country], ch II: Metallurgicheskaja i kamennougol’naja promyshlennost’ [Metallurgical and Coalmining Industry] (1899) (in Russian).

 2. Brin I, Gosudarstvennyj kapitalizm v SSSR v perehodnyj period ot kapitalizma k socializmu [State Capitalism in the USSR in the Transition Period from Capitalism to Socialism] (1959) (in Russian). 3. Butkovskij V, Inostrannye koncessii v narodnom hozjajstve SSSR [Foreign Concessions in the USSR’s National Economy] (Gosizdat 1928) (in Russian).

4. Levin A, Social’no-jekonomicheskie uklady v SSSR v period perehoda ot kapitalizma k socializmu [Socio-Economic Patterns in the Transition Period from Capitalism to Socialism] (Jekonomika 1967) (in Russian).

5. Shtof A, Gornoe pravo. Sravnitel’noe izlozhenie gornyh zakonov, dejstvujushhih v Rossii i v glavnejshih gornopromyshlennyh gosudarstvah Zapadnoj Evropy [Mining Law. A Comparative Presentation of Mining Laws in Force in Russia and in Major Mining States of Western Europe] (Tipografija M M Stasjulevicha 1896) (in Russian).

 6. Udincev V, Posessionnoe pravo [Session Law] (Tipografija Imperatorskogo Universiteta Sv Vladimira 1896) (in Russian).

Edited books

7. Juzhnyj metallurgicheskij trest “Jugostal’”: itogi dejatel’nosti za 1923–24 operac. god [South Steel Trust “Yugostal”: Performance in Operational Year 1923–24] (pod red pravlenija, 1925) (in Russian).

Journal articles

8. Kovalova O, ‘Problemy rozvytku kontsesiinykh vidnosyn v Ukraini’ [‘Issues of Concession Relations Development in Ukraine’] (2014) 1 Naukovyi visnyk 55–65 (in Ukrainian).

9. Rohach O ta Soliienko Yu, ‘Aktualni problemy derzhavnoi reiestratsii dohovoru komertsiinoi kontsesii (franchaizynhu) v Ukraini ta shliakhy yikh vyrishennia na osnovi zarubizhnoho dosvidu’ [‘Current Issues of State Registration of a Commercial Concession (Franchising) Contract in Ukraine and Ways of Resolving Thereof Based on Foreign Experience’] [2015] 32 (2) Naukovyi visnyk Uzhhorodskoho natsionalnoho universytetu. Seriia Pravo 119–24 (in Ukrainian).

10. Tal’ L, ‘Koncessionnye dogovory gorodskih obshhestvennyh upravlenij’ [‘Concession Contracts of City Public Administrations’] (1915) ХI–ХII Vestnik grazhdanskogo prava 32–42 (in Russian).

Dissertations

11. Bakhurynska M, ‘Pravovi zasady kontsesii zemelnoi dilianky za zakonodavstvom Ukrainy’ [‘Legal Foundations of Land Plot Concession under Legislation of Ukraine’] (dys kand yuryd nauk, 2008) (in Ukrainian).

12. Medvedieva N, ‘Pravovi zasady hirnychoi kontsesii’ [‘Legal Foundations of Mining Concession’] (dys kand yuryd nauk, 2009) (in Ukrainian).