Book excerpt: This edited book analyses the issues of state-building, the rule of law and good governance, and human rights in the post-Soviet space after 30 years from the USSR dissolution. In doing so, it assesses the presence (or absence) and the level of influence of the Soviet legacies in the constructed political and legal systems of the post-Soviet republics. Assessing whether individual’s interests are protected in theory and practice, the book conceptualizes the legacies that the Soviet Union left in the post-Soviet space after 30 years of disintegration. This book will be of key interest to scholars and students of human rights, governance, democratization studies, post-Soviet and Russia studies, and more widely to comparative politics, political economy, humanitarian studies and political history.