Legal Status of Public Domain: Domestic and Foreign Experience

This paper examines the legal status of the category of public domain (public things) in the Russian and foreign legal orders. The author considers the peculiarities of domestic normative regulation of public domain, referring to the works and studies of domestic legal scholars and scientists. Special attention is paid to the letter of the law - sectoral laws regulating public domain are analysed, as well as their interpretation by courts of various instances. The author then turns to the experience of three foreign countries with different models of regulation - Germany, France and Great Britain. On the example of the provisions of the law and judicial practice the characteristic features of the models are considered, as well as the positions of foreign classics from the doctrine are given. The author resorts to a comparative analysis of Russian and foreign regulation, which revealed positive and negative aspects of the current domestic model. Finally, the author proposes to turn to the experience of one of the foreign models to improve the existing regulatory system. In addition, the author pays attention to the Federal Law ‘On peculiarities of registration of rights to certain types of real estate objects and on amendments to certain legislative acts of the Russian Federation’ dated 02.11.2023 N 509-FZ, which will come into force on 1 May 2024 and which will presumably solve a number of topical problems highlighted in the study.