Genesis of the Foreign Policy Function of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine

The article presents a comprehensive study of the history of the formation and development of the foreign policy function of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine as one of the key areas of parliamentary activity.The author provides a step-by-step analysis of the transformation of the parliament's legal status in the field of foreign policy -from the Soviet period to the modern stage of European and Euro-Atlantic integration.It is emphasized that before the proclamation of Ukraine's state sovereignty, the legislative body was in fact unable to exercise any foreign policy powers: de facto they were absent, and de jure they began to take shape only in the constitutional acts of the late 1970s.Special attention is paid to the 1990 Declaration of State Sovereignty of Ukraine, which became the first document to lay the foundations for the state's independent foreign policy.It was precisely after its adoption that the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine effectively assumed the leading role in implementing the foreign policy function, since the institution of the presidency had not yet been formed.Furthermore, the paper examines the provisions of the 1991 Concept of the New Constitution and the 1992 Draft Constitution, which for the first time systematically outlined the parliament's powers in the foreign policy sphere.It is established that an important stage in the development of the normative framework for this function was the adoption of the 1993 Resolution "On the Main Directions of Ukraine's Foreign Policy," which defined the basic principles of the state's international activity and remained