Unification of norms on liability for smuggling in the criminal laws of the countries of the Eurasian Economic Union

At present, an unprecedented situation is being created in the modern history of the developmentof domestic law. The creation of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) in the post-Soviet space entailed the adoption of the Customs Code and some other normative acts, the legal force of which extends to the territories of the union states: Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Russia. The unity of the legal regulation of customs and other public relations in the sphere of foreign economic activity requires the unification of the provisions of the criminal laws of the Union States on criminal liability for certain economic crimes, the commission of which may negatively affect the interests of all the EAEU member States. First of all, this problem concerns the establishment of responsibility for the commission of criminal smuggling. An analysis of the current criminal laws of the EAEU countries indicates a high degree of inconsistency in the content of the norms on liability for the illegal movement of material assets across the customs border of the EAEU, in respect of which different legal regimes are established in civil circulation. Such inconsistency can give rise to contradictory investigative and judicial practice of making contradictory decisions on the criminality or non-criminality of legally identical actions performed on the territory of different states, but within the framework of the single customs territory of the EAEU. The presented work contains a scientific justification of the proposals for the formation of the composition of smuggling, as well as the author’s revision of the corresponding norm proposed for implementation in the criminal legislation of all the EAEU countries.