Arctic indigenous regimes: indigenous issues in the Arctic Council and the BEAR (original) (raw)

Indigenous Peoples in the New Arctic

The New Arctic, 2015

This chapter provides a brief introduction to the Indigenous peoples of the Arctic by focusing on three issues of crucial importance to these peoples: selfgovernance, rights to land and resources, and traditional knowledge. We fi rst note the diversity of Indigenous groups populating the Arctic, and discuss 'who is Indigenous', in terms of recognition/defi nition employed by the various Arctic states. We then consider recent developments in each of the three areas of focus, illustrating our broad-spectrum characterizations with concrete examples drawn mainly from North America and the Russian North. We underscore advancements in Indigenous self-governance, land and resource rights and the recognition of traditional knowledge in the Arctic but also acknowledge the uneven landscape of how these are realized across the Circumpolar North. The chapter is co-authored by three scholars, two of whom are Indigenous Northerners.

Indigenous peoples of the Barents Euro-Arctic region: national and international aspects

2021

The thesis examines the problem of correlation between the sovereign interests of states and the interests of indigenous communities in the Barents Euro-Arctic region. The research provides a broad analysis of international and national legislation in order to illustrate the desire of states to maintain their own sovereignty. At the same time, the main problematic issue of the thesis was the question of the need to recognize the Karelians at the international level as the indigenous people of the region. At the moment, the absence of a special status among the indigenous peoples living in Russia can be viewed as a desire of the state to preserve integrity and build a nationwide identity. However, those indigenous peoples, whose population exceeds 50,000, are on the verge of extinction. They do not have special rights that would contribute to the preservation of their native language, culture and traditions. In this connection, there is a need to provide them with protection and supp...

Indigenous Peoples in the Arctic Council: A Unique Feature?

Yearbook of Polar Law, 2022

The website of the Arctic Council rather proudly refers to the designation of indigenous peoples as 'permanent participants' in the Council's work as a unique feature, but some indigenous leaders are less than fully satisfied. In this article it is argued that this arrangement in significant ways falls behind the role of indigenous peoples in the United Nations, in particular its human rights and environment programs. Drawing on this comparison, the article concludes with placing a few suggestions before the Arctic Council.

Inuit Governance and Contemporary Challenges: New Questions for Arctic Governance

The Yearbook of Polar Law Online, 2012

This article explores the concept of governance, primarily in terms of policy rather than law, and examines current Inuit governance in light of recent economic and political changes in the Arctic region at the national and international level, with criteria of procedure (effficiency) and substance (equity). It points out that striking diffferences exist between Inuit regions in terms of governance and political institutions. Regarding procedure, it is shown that the main impediments are the fragmentation of administrative institutions and the implementations of provisions of agreements. In terms of equity, in some cases the right to self-determination is not guaranteed or efffective, and the ownership of land, sub-surface rights, except in Greenland is not operative. On the international stage, the equity criteria is not met. Completed with an approach in terms of politics, according to which the weigh of actors, such as Inuit actors, included in the process of governance, should b...

Remaking Arctic governance: the construction of an Arctic Inuit polity

Polar Record, 2006

This article focuses on the construction of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference (ICC), the aim being to offer the historical context within which the ICC came to serve as a significant voice for Arctic policy making and as a representative of Inuit peoples in general. It explores the role of the ICC in relation to the domestic, regional, and international political events taking place during its formative years in order to provide the basis through which the ICC came to be a political authority in the Arctic. While the main coalescence of events was around the theme of Arctic resource development, each event significantly helped lay the foundation for, and structures under which, Arctic policy would proceed into the future. This includes a changing Arctic narrative that has transformed the Arctic from a being a region concentrated on resource extraction and Cold War security into a region serving as a symbolic pinnacle for global sustainable development. Through the expanded political agency of the ICC and an international focus on the Arctic, a vision of the Arctic has emerged under which it is defined by its natural environment and by the indigenous peoples who inhabit this space. This is an INDIPO project paper .

Arctic Geopolitics & Autonomy, Arctic Perspective Cahier No. 2.

The book explores the interplay of visual culture, technology and indigenous activism in the North, and highlights the cultural, environmental and geopolitical significance of the Arctic and its indigenous people. The book features essays by Michael Bravo, Nicola Triscott, Katarina Soukup, Lassi Heininen and David Turnbull, and is richly illustrated with colour and black and white images and photographs.

Background paper: Indigenous peoples and the Arctic

The aim of this paper is to present the situation of the Arctic indigenous peoples in relation to the changing marine environment. However, the role of the marine environment can only be understood in a wider context of the overall situation of Arctic Indigenous peoples due to the complexity of their respective indigenous ways of life. Therefore, it's necessary to describe not only the direct impacts of climate change on the Arctic marine environment but also on the terrestrial areas of indigenous peoples. To complete the picture, a focus is also placed on economical, legal and political aspects.

Chapter: Co-management as a Foundation of Arctic Exceptionalism: Strengthening the Bonds between the Indigenous and Westphalian Worlds

Chapter 4, Section I, Yearbook of Polar Law XIII (Brill), 2022

Successful collaboration between the Indigenous peoples and the sovereign states of Arctic North America has helped to stabilize the Arctic region, fostering meaningful Indigenous participation in the governance of their homeland through the introduction of new institutions of self-governance at the municipal, tribal and territorial levels, and successful diplomatic collaborations at the international level through the Arctic Council. Undergirding each of these pillars of Indigenous participation in Arctic governance is a mutuality of commitment to the principle of co-management of the Arctic that has united Indigenous peoples and the state across Arctic North America. Co-management has become so widely and reciprocally embraced by tribal peoples and states alike that it now provides a stable foundation bridging the Indigenous, transnational world with the Westphalian world of states and statecraft. This stability and the reciprocal and over time increasingly balanced relationship between sovereign states and Indigenous stakeholders has yielded a widely recognized spirit of international collaboration often referred to as Arctic exceptionalism. Along the way, co-management has transformed into both a mechanism of, and powerful paradigm for, trans-Arctic diplomacy that fosters not only greater domestic unity between tribe and state, but between states as well, catapulting mechanisms designed for domestic resource management to the international stage. Arctic exceptionalism has come under recent strain from the renewal of great power competition in the Arctic. As Arctic competition between states rises, the multitude of co-management systems and the multi-level, intergovernmental and inter-organizational relationships they have nurtured across the region can help to neutralize new threats from intensifying interstate tensions.

Inuit Political Engagement in the Arctic

Arctic Yearbook, 2012

The nation-state has typically been employed as the primary unit for political analysis in conventional international relations theory. However, since the end of the Cold War, transnational issues such as climate change along with a growing number of multinational corporations and international organizations are challenging the limits of that analytical model. This is especially true in the Arctic where indigenous organizations have reframed the region as a distinct territory that transcends national political boundaries. In Canada, the Inuit have remapped the Arctic along cultural lines in an effort to ensure all Inuit benefit from future policy implementation. At the international level, the Inuit are promoting a concept of the Arctic based on cultural cohesion and shared challenges, in part to gain an enhanced voice in international affairs. The Inuit are also utilizing customary law to ensure their rights as a people will be upheld. What is occurring in the Arctic is an unparall...