Permafrost Degradation as an Object of Legal Regulation: Ontology and a Threshold Mechanism

The legal mechanisms currently in force — land and property institutions, tortious liability,spatial planning, contractual risk allocation, insurance, indigenous participation, andemergency response — are structurally unsuited to the consequences of permafrostdegradation, a prior diagnostic analysis has shown. These institutions are comparedfunctionally: the article does not assume that they bear the same sectoral label or normativeform across the jurisdictions examined. The problem is less a matter of isolated gaps withinthese institutions than a mismatch between their functional premises and the nature of thephenomenon itself.Building on that conclusion, the article turns from why existing remedies fail to whatconstruction could support preventive regulation instead. It treats permafrost degradationas an independent object of legal regulation and shows how measurable geophysicalindicators can acquire the status of a legally cognizable fact, triggering precaution-basedregulation and specific duties, by adapting general principles of environmental law tocryospheric processes.