Elimination of accumulated harm facilities in the Arctic zone of the Russian Federation as a legal condition for ecologically oriented sustainable development
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: The subject of the research is the legal mechanism for identifying, assessing, accounting for, and eliminating objects of accumulated environmental damage in the Arctic zone of the Russian Federation. The object of the research consists of public relations arising between public authorities, business entities, the population of Arctic territories, and other participants in environmental activities when addressing the consequences of past economic, military, transportation, and other activities. The author examines accumulated damage in detail as a combination of contaminated areas, waste, abandoned infrastructure, sunken property, and other sources of ecological risk. Special attention is given to the connection between the elimination of accumulated damage and sustainable development in the Arctic, the state registry, prioritization of objects, post-elimination monitoring, and planning of new economic activities, as well as the impact of climate changes, traditional natural resource use, and public financing on the effectiveness of restoring damaged territories. The methodological basis of the research includes formal-legal, systemic-structural, comparative-legal, and doctrinal methods, which allowed for the analysis of Russian regulation, scientific approaches, and international experience in eliminating accumulated damage. The main conclusions of the conducted research are the assertions that the elimination of objects of accumulated damage in the Arctic zone of the Russian Federation should be viewed not as a technical cleanup of the consequences of past development, but as an independent legal condition for environmentally oriented sustainable development. A particular contribution of the author is the justification for the necessity of forming a cohesive legal cycle, which includes the identification of the object, risk assessment, inclusion in the state registry, financing, design, elimination, monitoring, and accounting for results in further territorial development. The novelty of the research lies in the proposal to develop an Arctic-oriented system for prioritizing objects, enshrining mandatory post-elimination monitoring, taking accumulated damage into account when approving new industrial and infrastructure projects, as well as utilizing international experience in public accountability, stock financing, and implementing the "polluter pays" principle.
Source: Право и политика
Author: Danila Vital'evich Petuhov
Language: English
Topic: Environmental law and policy
Subfield: Law
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W7167351509