Drobina I. Legal regulation of provision of the volunteer assistance to the Armed Forces of Ukraine

Drobina І. О. Legal regulation of provision of the volunteer assistance to the Armed Forces of Ukraine. – Qualification scientific work on the right of the manuscript. The dissertation is for obtaining the degree of the Philosophy Doctor in specialty 081 – Law. – National Defence University of Ukraine, Kyiv, 2025. The dissertation is devoted to resolving the theoretical and practical issues related to the legal regulation for providing the volunteer assistance to the Armed Forces of Ukraine. In her dissertation the author has analyzed the history of volunteer movement, its development and its legal regulation in the world as well as in Ukraine. The dissertation findings show that the Ukrainian volunteer movement isn’t detached from the world one, and that Ukrainian legislation in this sphere is formed when being influenced by the challenges the state faces with. The unique features of Ukrainian volunteer movement consist in the facts that it has been ahead of its legal formalization and that the development of volunteer movement represented the social relationships that took place in the sphere of provision the volunteer assistance to the Armed Forces of Ukraine during the period of the drafting the regulatory documents. The dissertation investigates the models of legal regulation in the USA, the Great Britain, Poland, the Republic of Moldova, and Turkmenistan. There have been examined the peculiarities of volunteer movement in the above-mentioned countries and the possibility for Ukraine to benefit from their experience has been investigated. It has been revealed that the legislation of foreign states harmonizes with Universal Declaration on Volunteering of 2001 and European Charter on the Rights and Responsibilities of Volunteers dated 18 September 2011. The sources of the legal regulation of foreign countries are national legislation, traditions and practices. The majourity of countries don’t have the legislation on volunteering. Those countries that do have the one can hold it either in special law on volunteering or in the set of regulatory documents the legislation on volunteering is fragmented amongst. It has been studied in the dissertation that the international acts in the sphere of human rights as well as of volunteering became the basis for the formation of legislation for volunteer activity. Among them there are the following acts that can be identified as the important ones for Ukraine: the Universal Declaration on Volunteering adopted on 14 September 1990 in Paris at the XI World Volunteer Conference of International Association for Volunteer Effort; the Universal Declaration on Volunteering, that was adopted in January 2001 at XVI World Volunteer Conference; the Association Agreement between Ukraine as one party and European Union, European Atomic Energy Community and their member states – as another one dated 27 June 2014; European Convention on the Long-term Voluntary Service dated 11 May 2000. The author has found that despite the availability of special international acts in the sphere of volunteering each country establishes its own mechanism for the legal regulation of volunteering that can be spelled out either in the specific law on volunteering or in a series of other regulatory documents. Meanwhile, in the majourity of states this regulation is carried out based on customary law. It was investigated that the institutionalization of providing different types of assistance to the Armed Forces of Ukraine includes the following periods: patronage aid – from 7 October 1994 to the present day; charitable assistance – from 16 September 1997 to the present day; humanitarian aid – from 22 October 1999 to the present day; volunteer support – from 19 April 2011 to the present day. Three types of assistance – humanitarian, charitable, volunteer do not have the clear distinction in terms of the subject of legal regulation; they exist simultaneously, complementing each other, including each other and competing with each other. Based on the research of the subject of legal regulation related to volunteer activity and volunteer assistance the author has proposed her own definition of volunteer activity as self-imposed, socially-oriented, non-profit activity that is carried out by the volunteers by means of providing the volunteer support or that is aimed at rendering assistance to people that face difficult life circumstances, and that contributes to the volunteer’s self-realization. It is reasonable to understand the volunteer support as the range of works and services that are done and provided by volunteers for free; it also includes the works and services in raising money or other material assets and giving them at no cost. The dissertation examines the normative and legal acts that regulate the activity of volunteer organizations and volunteers in the sphere of providing the volunteer assistance to the Armed Forces of Ukraine.