The system of law of Ukraine incorporates legal mechanisms aimed at protecting the interests of the State. Protection of the interests of the State is an objective need from the standpoint of society development. At the same time, with a view to protecting the State’s interests, public authorities have to introduce restrictions on private rights, freedoms and related private interests. This can lead to a conflict and contradictions between social interests, and non-compliance by the State with legal standards for protection of rights and freedoms often entails legal responsibility of the State.

The purpose of the article is to develop the scientific and theoretical approaches to understand the interests of the State, to make their correct identification, create the definition of the State interests as an object protected in the system of law of Ukraine, and also to describe their signs.

The sign characterizing the interests of the State is the availability of structure, i.e., they are a complex structural phenomenon: they are based on respective needs and comprise the awareness and the means of implementation thereof. Furthermore, objectivity is also a sign of the State’s interests – they are based on the needs which are objective in nature. If while implementing and protecting the interests of the State public authorities fail to take into account their objective and structural nature, this often entails the insufficient efficiency of the mechanisms of State power aimed at implementing and protecting the interests of the State, making the State responsible, property losses of the State and the damage to its public authority.

Real interests of the State bear a sign of publicity. Publicity, as a sign of the State’s interests, implies that they are based on the needs which by their nature are common for society as a whole. Such needs are not limited to the needs of the government machinery, officials, branches of government, or departmental needs. Fulfillment of the needs which the State interests rest upon is crucial from the perspective of development and functioning of the State proper, but at the same time it is important for society in general. It is the sign of publicity on which basis the State’s interests are marked off from similar phenomena, such as departmental interests, interests of officials, State-owned enterprises, and branches of government.

The interests of the State are characterized by their official recognition by the State and relevance to the purpose of meeting the general social needs they are based on. Relevance as an independent sign of the State’s interests is that these interests should be implemented and protected, for which purpose the State should use legal means that are most effective and suitable for implementing the relevant general social needs.

The interests of the State should be understood as objective interests recognized by the State, based on the general social (public) needs and relevant to these needs in terms of legal means of their implementation.

Bibliography

Authored books

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7. Subochev V, Osnovy teorii zakonnyh interesov [Fundamentals of the Theory of Legitimate Interests] (Prospekt 2006) (in Russian).

Edited books

8. Schreuer C, ‘Selected Standards of Treatment Available under the Energy Charter Treaty’ in Investment Protection and the Energy Charter Treaty (Coop G and Ribeiro C ed, JurisNet 2008) (in English).

Journal articles

9. Schill S, ‘International Investment Law and the Rule of Law’ (2017) 18 Amsterdam Law School Research Paper 3 (in English).

10. Sweet A, ‘Proportionality, General Principles of Law, and Investor-State Arbitration: A Response to José Alvarez’ (2014) Yale Law School: Faculty Scholarship Series 916 (in English).

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