Legal regime of Arctic territories of Russian Federation and granting special rights to indigenous (aboriginal) peoples

Abstract

For many years, both in the USSR and in the Russian Federation there was no understanding of the need to develop an integrated legal framework for regulating legal regime of Arctic territories. The article deals with the main regulatory legal acts of the Russian Federation regulating legal status of Arctic zone of the Russian Federation, as well as with theoretical approaches to the formation of an appropriate regulatory and legal framework. The authors analyze the main problems of the development of Arctic territories in two aspects: state (municipal) governance in Russian Artic, and the peculiarities of the status of indigenous small peoples living in Arctic territories. The authors conclude that it is necessary to update and seriously modernize legal regulation in this sphere of public relations. Based on the identified problems and shortcomings of legal regulation, the authors propose solutions addressed to the legislator in order to eliminate gaps in Russian “Arctic” legislation: transmission of powers over Arctic territories to the Ministry of Economic Development; registration of specific powers of the municipal bodies located in Arctic territories; providing legal conventions, which fix specific rights of the indigenous smallnumbered peoples of Russia; development of legislation on indigenous peoples in order to provide their specific rights toward co-management of the territories of their traditional location; creation of specialized state agency responsible for affairs of indigenous peoples; mechanism of state and companies’ compensation of indigenous communities for the use of natural resources.

Keywords

• legal status of arctic
• arctic zone of russia
• indigenous small people
• state territory
• legal regime of territory