Pluralism of Legal Understanding in Russian and Global Legal Doctrine: Boundaries of Legal Positivism and the Natural-Law Tradition

The article examines the principal approaches to the concept of law in Russian and global legal scholarship, emphasizing the nexus between law and human rights as the core of legal regulation. It argues that the plurality of perspectives—legal positivism, natural-law theory, sociological jurisprudence, moral-philosophical and anthropological viewpoints—reflects historical and cultural contexts, the researcher’s value commitments, and competing understandings of the sources of law. Law is construed as the normative expression of freedom, with human rights serving as a criterion of legality and a limit on state authority; positive law is lawful only insofar as it is consistent with recognized individual freedoms. The paper advocates coordination rather than opposition of theories, combining normative analysis with socio-cultural inquiry, and grounding legal order in legal culture and mutual recognition of subjects. It concludes in favor of an integrative model that links law and human rights within a unified system of legal communications suitable for contemporary conditions.