The Legal Concept of the Frontier and Its Methodological Potential (In Memory of Professor Valeriy Vasilievich Lazarev)

The paper is devoted to the methodological innovation proposed by Professor V. V. Lazarev, namely, the use of the concept of the Frontier in addressing fundamental problems of legal scholarship. It presents the author’s own account of how the concept of the Frontier may be employed in theoretical legal research, demonstrates how the analytical tools associated with this concept can enrich the methodological framework of the theory of state and law, proposes new perspectives for the study of legal genesis and the adaptation of law to contemporary challenges, and outlines prospects for the development of a legal concept of the Frontier. The paper argues that the Frontier concept possesses substantial heuristic value for the analysis of contemporary state and legal realities. It may be applied across a broad range of theoretical legal issues, from the study of the boundaries of legal regulation to the analysis of interactions among legal systems, cultures, and normative orders. Its use makes it possible to capture the dynamics, transitional states, and dialogic nature of modern legal phenomena and to shift attention from established, institutionalized forms of law to the processes of their emergence and transformation at the margins of legal regulation. The development of the Frontier idea into a theoretical framework creates the doctrinal preconditions for the formation of its legal concept. The study is based on the author’s paper presented at the plenary session of the Thirteenth Annual Meeting of Legal Theorists, held in Moscow at the Institute of Legislation and Comparative Law under the Government of the Russian Federation on February 25, 2026.

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