The International Journal
of Not-for-Profit Law

Volume 8, Issue 3, May 2006

This issue of The International Journal of Not-for-Profit Law features a special section on a particularly timely topic, Russia and the Newly Independent States. We open with an examination of Russia’s new NGO law and some of the knotty issues that it raises, written by Natalia Bourjaily. Next, Alexander Livshin and Richard Weitz examine the shifts in Russian civil society under Vladimir Putin, and Julia Khodorova offers an overview of Russian philanthropy. In a provocative article, Sada Aksartova suggests some factors that may explain why American donors gravitated toward civil society in general and NGOs in particular after the Cold War. And Alexander Vinnikov summarizes Ukrainian foundation law and regulations.

Leading off our other articles, Douglas Rutzen and Michelle Coulton consider a range of possible approaches to assess how legal and regulatory reform may affect the voluntary sector in Canada; much of their analysis applies equally to other countries facing the same issue. In another provocative article, Kristen Ghodsee argues that feminist NGOs must change their ways if they truly want to help women in Eastern Europe. Finally, Statistics New Zealand and The Committee for the Study of the New Zealand Non-Profit Sector set forth criteria for identifying not-for-profit organizations; again, though the focus is on New Zealand, much of the article applies elsewhere as well.

We gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Thomas Robinson and Dafina Blacksher Diabate of Duke University Press; Andrew Rae of Non-Profit Institutions Satellite Account, Statistics New Zealand; our HTML master, Kareem Elbayar; Erin Means, formerly of the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law (ICNL); IJNL volunteer Asad Kudiya; David Robinson, of ICNL’s Advisory Council; and, especially, our deeply informed and gracious authors.

Stephen Bates
Editor
International Journal of Not-for-Profit Law
sbates@icnl.org