Journal of Security and Sustainability Issues

9/11 made terrorism a part of everyday life on a global basis, attacking civilisation as a whole. As a result, the activity of terrorist organisations reduces people’s sense of security even in their everyday lives, by randomly attacking high public density targets with a huge emotional and publicity impact. The states cannot guarantee security through their law enforcement agencies alone, as the sources of danger have multiplied and become more unpredictable. Therefore, it is more important than ever to involve communities, social organisations, economic and market actors in maintaining common security. Private security thus plays by now an extremely important role in completing public order and security. The radicalisation trend within the terrorist organisations results in a growing number of internal terrorism threats. Given that terrorists aim to choose targets with a likely “success” of their acts, it is important to highlight those whose partial, temporary or total downtime entails consequences which would also make other infrastructures inoperative. Those who from these aspects turn to be the most important, and their continuous and well-functioning operation are essential to the operation of other infrastructures, are called critical infrastructures. If we put the above phenomena together, a clear conflict emerges: critical infrastructure protection, although in most cases not state owned, is also a common security issue, protected mostly by private security services, employing people mainly trained for private security tasks. Our article highlights this problem introducing the scientific background, also suggesting a possible solution for evaluation.

The article is dedicated to the research of legal and management aspects of intellectual property rights protection in the field of medicine and biotechnologies. The authors clarified the patenting peculiarities of inventions in the area of medicine and biotechnologies, particularly issues concerning applications for obtaining patents, the determination of intellectual property compliance with patentability requirements, the registration of granted patents in the relevant registry etc. They identified the legal and organizational aspects of intellectual property rights protection in the field of medicine and biotechnologies upon the study of the leading European countries experience (using the examples of the United Kingdom, Germany and France). One summarized the international experience in the protection of intellectual property rights in the field of medicine and biotechnologies and highlighted the regulation specifics of these issues according to the current Ukrainian legislation. In particular, the authors defined the requirements for the protection of intellectual property rights in the field of medicine and biotechnologies, which have been set out in legal documents at the international level. Recommendations for management organization and intellectual brand capital protection depending on specificity of national economic and legal model. Are offered. The mechanism of economic security management of a country for intellectual property right protection in the field of medicine and biotechnologies is created.

The article deals with the VAT gap, its split by causes and determinants, the problem of dependencies. The article also reveals the main ways of calculating the VAT gap - their advantages and disadvantages, summarizes the research done by theoreticians and evaluates the research results. After the theoretical analysis and presentation of the research methodology, the aim is to find out the variables that influence the VAT gap in Lithuania. Using the regression analysis model, the factors determining the VAT gap and their significance, as well as their impact on the decrease / increase of the VAT gap in Lithuania, were identified.

This research aims to investigate the integrated reporting (IR)quality on European firms and whether there is an improvement on (IR)quality from 2016 to 2017. Using 63 firms in the period of 2016 and 2017, the content analysis method then applied to evaluate the quality of 126 integrated reports. This results then used to investigate whether there is an improvement of the integrated reporting quality from 2016 to 2017. The research findings show that the European firms, on average, published a moderate quality of integrated report. There is also improvement in integrated reporting quality from 2016 to 2017, but partially only, especially for readibility and clarity of document and content element area.

The activities related to food production, processing, handling, transportation, storage and disposal of food products have an important impact on sustainability. Hence, people’s food choices also contribute for the definition of the extension of this impact and therefore this work aimed at studying some motivations that influence people’s eating habits. This was an observational, cross-sectional study, undertaken on a non-probabilistic sample of 11960 participants form 16 countries (Argentina, Brazil, Croatia, Egypt, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Serbia, Slovenia, Romania, United States of America). The survey was undertaken by means of a questionnaire of self-response, applied only to adult citizens. The results obtained indicated that a great number of participants admit to shape their food choices according to some environmental concerns, like, for example, they prefer foods from the season or those that comply with sustainable processing and packaging. Regarding the food surplus, this seems a priority to avoid at home, but not so much when it comes to restaurants. Factor analysis indicated two types of concerns: Purely Environmental Concerns (PEC) and Sustainability allied to Quality Concerns (SQC), and cluster analysis showed that 54% of the participants tend to make their food choices considering both types of concerns, which is very expressive and positive towards sustainability of the food chain.

The authors investigated the features of the legal regulation of the functioning and organizational aspects of the activities of the authorities, the competence of which includes ensuring the security of the court, judges, and other participants of legal proceedings. Particular attention is paid to the intergovernmental body of the Council of Europe - The European Committee on Legal Co-operation (CDCJ), one of the activities of which is to ensure the proper functioning of the judiciary. The features of the general project between the CDCJ and Ukraine “Support for judicial reform in Ukraine (voluntary contribution)” are identified. The features of the activities of sheriffs in Canada and the USA, the regulatory documents of these countries, which determine the status and competence of the sheriffs in the field of judicial protection, are highlighted. The chronology of the establishment in Ukraine of the state system for protecting the court, judges, and other participants of legal proceedings, from 1997 to the present, is investigated. In the course of the study, the authors have been determined the individual stages of the establishment in Ukraine of the state system for protecting the court, judges, and other participants of legal proceedings; the competence of state bodies to ensure judicial protection and the legal basis for their activities, depending on the period of operation. The content of the norms of some regulatory legal acts of Ukrainian legislation, which regulates the activities of the bodies responsible for ensuring the security of the court, judges, and other participants of legal proceedings, is disclosed. The scheme of “gap” while elemental situational analysis of safety of participants in legal proceedings is examined. A matrix for ranking the factors of complex security of participants of judicial system and recommendations on development of public management in the area of legal and judicial security.

The constant presence of natural and anthropogenic hazards in the social development processes suggests the need to take them into account when predicting its development. Today, due to the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, various economic instruments have been implemented in most countries to support the population and stabilize the economy after taking emergency measures to prevent the incidence of coronavirus infection. Based on the expert survey, the authors have determined the socio-economic and macroeconomic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, different approaches to respond in various life spheres of the population, as well as measures undertaken by different countries to support the population and national economy in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The authors researched the functional peculiarities of the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine in the context of ensuring the national economic security of the state. They provided the overview of scientific approaches to defining notions «border security» and «operational and service activities». The main regulatory documents, which were adopted depending on the period of functioning of the state law enforcement body to ensure inviolability of the state borders, have been indicated. The authors highlighted the essence of the operational and service activities of the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine by defining key functions of this law enforcement body and revealing the distinctive features of each of them. They also identified priority areas for the implementation of joint operations to provide border security under the Strategy of the Integrated Border Management for the period up to 2025. Particular attention was put to the rules of some regulatory documents of current Ukrainian legislation, which specify the peculiarities of operational and service activities of the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine, the issues of structural construction of this law enforcement body, the formation of its personnel, etc. The article contains the results of operational and service activities of the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine according to the database of February 20, 2020. The means of ensuring the economic security of the national economy have been systematized by the customs of the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine, which allowed identifying existing threats in the field of foreign economic activity, generalizing the problems in the customs regulation system.

The article deals with the peculiarities of formation and enforcement of the national investment security in terms of distribution of investment flows and demand for investments. The global market for investment resources was analyzed and its impact on the investment needs and security of the individual countries was evaluated. At the methodical level, the interrelation and interdependence of components of national investment security were defined. Leading security indicators were identified and characterized taking into account investment risks factors. A Process model of the country’s investment security system was developed considering the risks and threats from the external environment and economic issues from the internal environment. The algorithm of complex assessment of the investment security of a country, based on the identification of stages and components of use of investments at the national level, was formed. A Model for evaluating the country’s individual investment security measures was developed.

The nature study of customs regulation in modern conditions has lead to the need for theoretical bases and practical recommendations for the implementation of an effective mechanism of the state economic security, because in the context of improving the challenges of globalization, characterized by a simultaneous increase of scales and expansion of geography of international trade and labor migration, openness of national economies, revitalize the integration processes, there is an increased influence on the economic system of the state and society threats in the external environment. The concept of “customs security” is defined at the doctrinal level by covering the scientific approaches to its interpretation, as well as its interpretation at the level of the current Ukrainian legislation. Particular attention is paid to the issues of codification of EU customs legislation. The legal status of The World Customs Organization (WCO) as an independent intergovernmental body and priority areas of activity under the Strategic Plan for the period 2019-2022 have been determined. Despite the implementation of further steps to harmonize Ukrainian customs law with the European, the creation of favorable business conditions for the subjects of foreign economic activity (FEA) justified the expediency of developing a concept of ensuring economic security in the sphere of FEA on the bases of balancing economic interests, which is based on the search for a compromise between the measures of control of revenue and fees to ensure economic security in the sphere of FEA and providing business simplifications taking into account the economic interests.