The Significance of Sámi Rights: Law, Justice, and Sustainability for the Indigenous Sámi in the Nordic Countries

This book examines the significance of the rights of the Sámi people and analyses the issues raised by the recognition and implementation of these rights in the Nordic countries.

Written together by Sámi and non-Sámi experts, the book adopts a human rights approach to examine the adequacy of law and policies that seek to protect the culture and livelihood of Sámi communities in their traditional lands and territories. The book discusses contemporary legal and jurisprudential developments in the field of Sámi rights. It examines the processes and challenges in the recognition and implementation of these rights, particularly in relation to the governance of their traditional land and resources.

The book will be of particular interest to legal scholars, political scientists, experts in the field of Indigenous peoples’ rights, governmental authorities, and members of Indigenous communities.

The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons (CC-BY) 4.0 license.

Dorothée Cambou is Assistant Professor of sustainability science at the Faculty of Law and HELSUS at the University of Helsinki. Her research examines international law and human rights, including the rights of Indigenous peoples, environmental and social justice issues linked with the governance of lands in the Arctic and the Global South. She is the current chair of the Nordic Network for Sámi and Indigenous Peoples Law (NORSIL). Currently, she also leads several research initiatives, including a project concerning the responsibilities of business to respect the rights of Indigenous peoples in the green transition and a network project on ’the implementation of the rights of the Indigenous Sámi people as a means to achieve inclusive and sustainable development in the Nordic countries’, financed by the Nordic Research Council. The present volume is an outcome of the latter project.

Øyvind Ravna is Professor of Law (Dr. Juris eq. to PhD, 2008). He is also the head of the research group of Sámi and Indigenous law at UIT the Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø; the head of the GoSápmi research project; the editor of Arctic Review on Law and Politics; and Adjunct Professor at the Sámi University of Applied Sciences, Kautokeino, Norway. His research fields include property law, legal history, human rights and indigenous people’s law.