Comparative Analysis of Regulatory Requirements for Cargo Securing: Ukrainian and International Experience Based on the Practices of the United States and the European Union

The article presents a comparative analysis of regulatory approaches to cargo securing through the study of Ukraine and foreign experience. The scientific novelty of the research is due to the actuality of the topic set by the modern trends in the development of road freight transport, specifically, the permanent growth of the freight flows and escalation of requirements for road safety. Currently, cargo securing is considered as an essential contributor to emergency prevention, material losses reduction and risk minimization of any road transportation participants. The problem is also important for the reason of its harmonization with the European standards and requirements for foreign regulatory approaches to cargo safety, which is caused by the European integration. The article aims to make a comparative analysis of a regulatory approach to cargo securing in the three regulatory models: Ukraine, the United States and the European Union from the viewpoint of the regulation level, the techniques of technical rules and the control procedures. The materials of the research were the normative legal acts, technical standards and official methodological guides containing the rules for cargo securing requirements in the given jurisdictions. The methodological basis of the research rested on the comparative, legal, regulatory and documentary, systemic approaches that gave the possibility to compare the legal provisions according to the common criteria of analysis. The comparative analysis of Ukrainian and foreign standards of cargo securing reveals the existence of a common regulatory logic according to which the correct cargo securing is regarded as a prerequisite for road safety and the safety of cargo being carried by road. Nevertheless, considerable differences in methods of realization of this logic have also been identified, especially in terms of the level of regulatory elaboration, position of technical standards in the system of regulation and the structure of regulatory mechanisms, that manifests itself in the formalized federal US model, the standard-oriented EU one and the steady approximation of the Ukrainian system to European standards within the framework of European integration process.