Ildar Begishev, Chief Researcher at the Research Institute of Digital Technologies and Law, Professor of the Department of Criminal Law and Procedure at KIU, joined the team of authors of a monograph “The Cambridge Handbook of the Law, Policy, and Regulation for Human–Robot Interaction”. The team comprised world’s leading scientists in the field of ethical and legal regulation of robotics.

The monograph is organized into four parts and includes 46 chapters. In his chapter no. 35 (“Limits of Criminal Law Regulation of Robotics: The Russian Federation Law Perspective”) Professor Begishev analyzes the law of the Russian Federation and the current state of intersectoral relations between different legal systems that apply to the regulation of robots. To do so, the author shows the complementary and consistent attempts of legal scholars to integrate the legal processes occurring within civil, administrative, and criminal law into a single comprehensive framework for robot regulation. As discussed in this chapter, the connection between the civil law principles of indemnification, liability insurance, and the criminal law provisions is essential for establishing an effective regulatory system for robotic devices, as well as for constructing norms for the regulation of robots. The chapter argues that there are currently no well-accepted mechanisms in civil law to hold the robots’ software developers accountable for resulting harm, which is a serious omission, given the growing autonomy of robotic devices. Further, the author argues that it is essential to recognize controlled and semicontrolled robots as sources of increased danger to humans and that the responsibility for the damage caused by such robots should be assigned to their owners. The author concludes that the main criteria distinguishing civil law torts from criminal law offenses, when considering harms to individuals resulting from interaction with robots, are the degree of public danger and the extent of damage caused by the robotic technology.

This publication is an important event in the scientific life of our University. Such studies contribute to the growing authority of the Russian legal science in the international arena and strengthen the country’s global image as one of the leaders in this field. They also strengthen the position of Kazan Innovation University as a leading scientific center in Russia and emphasize its leadership in the field of digital technology law research.