THE CONCEPT AND ESSENCE OF THE CIRCULAR ECONOMY IN COMMERCIAL LAW

Abstract

The article provides an economic and legal understanding of the concept and essence of
the circular economy as an integrated model of organizing social production and commodity
circulation in the context of digitalization, resource constraints, rising prices for primary raw materials, and strengthening the environmental and climate obligations of the state and business.
Circularity in the field of economic law is materialized in the system of economic relations, namely
organizational and economic, intra-economic and property relations, as well as in the mechanisms
of state influence on economic activity, which determine competitive conditions, rules for access
to infrastructure, and legal regimes of resources and products. The need for a legally operational,
clearly structured concept capable of providing regulatory certainty for the formation of
obligations, compliance standards, incentives, and sanctions in the field of economic activity is
substantiated.
Based on a system-structural and comparative legal analysis, it is shown that modern
European approaches to the circular economy form an intersectoral regulatory matrix where
product policy, waste prevention, standardization, information and traceability requirements,
public procurement instruments, financial incentives and competition law intersect. The applied
dimension of circularity for the urban economy is separately revealed, where the worn-out housing
and communal infrastructure determines the transaction costs of the transition to circular models
and requires the coordination of legal regulation of economic activity with municipal programs,
investment mechanisms and public-private partnership.
The author's definition of the circular economy in economic law is formulated and the
essence of this legal category is characterized.