NORTHERN (ARCTIC) TERRITORIES OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION: IMPLEMENTATION OF ECONOMIC RIGHTS BY INDIGENOUS SMALLER PEOPLES

By the means of historical method, three stages of indigenous peoples legal status are analyzed: imperial (csar’), Soviet and post-Soviet periods. In each period, the analysis of legal regulation’s mechanism is provided. Economic factors relating to both progress and regress of conventional householding of indigenous peoples are studied. Conceptions of Russian Northern territories’ and indigenous people’s development are scrutinized. The authors underline the need of the state’s participation in development of conventional sources of indigenous people’s economy, regarding them as northern branches of Russian economics. The issue of industrial development of indigenous people’s lands is particularly considered. The lack of relevant mechanism of legal regulation in this sphere on a federal level is outlined, including methodologies of estimating losses for withdrawing lands from indigenous peoples to subsoil users’ interests. The problems of indigenous peoples’ conventional economic branches development (fishing, hunting, reindeer herding) are analyzed. They are caused by the lack of its’ planned evolution and unsettledness of a variety of issues on legislative level. Options for legislative modernization are proposed by outlining special circle of «priority» rights of indigenous peoples such as rights to fishing and hunting, rights to land.