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6th Polar Law Symposium starts soon

6^th Polar Law Symposium will start on Friday, 11^th of October at the University of Akureyri, northern Iceland.

This year´s agenda will include sessions on Arctic politics and law. It will concentrate on new opportunities and the role of the Arctic Council in governance of the Arctic Region.

The panel on management of Arctic natural resources will concentrate on current situation in Greenland as well as indigenous knowledge of wilderness protection and management in the High North.

For the first time Polar Law Symposium will tough upon the topic of civil – military operations in the Region.

Lot of time will be dedicated into human rights and rights of indigenous people as well as the law of the sea.

Since September 2008, Symposiums dealing with the emerging legal issues regarding the Polar areas have been held annually.

The former Symposiums gave important inputs to the discussions regarding the issues of the Polar areas. An overview of the former Symposiums can be accessed below where topics, speeches and speakers are enumerated.

View detailed agenda of 6^th Polar Law Symposium.

October 3, 2013
Anthony Speca gives a lecture in Akureyri

Today, 18^th of April at the University of Akureyri in northern Iceland, Anthony Speca gave speech on Nunavut, Greenland and politics of resource revenues. Another lecture from The Arctic Lecture series, organised by the University of Akureyri, touched upon economic situation in Canadian North and Greenland. Mr Speca highlighted that the idea that Nunavut could one day put more into Confederation than it takes out is not a flight of fancy.

Nunavut’s entire 2011-12 territorial formula financing grant of about $1.2 billion is less than half of the resource income that Newfoundland and Labrador, the newest net-contributing of “have” province, is projected to collect the same year.

If self-reliance is truly Nunavut’s aim in negotiatingdevolution, then it seems sensible for Nunavut to align. Co nceptually the fiscal self-reliance it will gain from a share of resource revenues with the political self-reliance it will gain from more province-like power over resource development.

Anthony Speca is founder and Managing Principal of Polar Aspect, a Nunavut-based consultancy dedicated to public policy, government strategy and economic negotiation in the Canadian and circumpolar North.

He has advised government on fiscal policy and the devolution of lands and resources, particularly fiscal federalism and resource-revenue sharing.

As a columnist for Northern Public Affairs magazine, Anthony also writes on international politics and economics in the Arctic, and its implications for Canada. Anthony is a trained negotiator and accredited mediator, with a special focus on negotiations and disputes involving government, indigenous peoples, or rural or resource-based business.

Anthony trained as a negotiator at the London School of Economics and Political Science and was accredited as a mediator in both the UK and USA in 2013. Anthony obtained a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Toronto in 1999.

His research culminated in his book, Hypothetical Syllogistic and Stoic Logic (Brill 2001).

For more detailed information about the politics of resource revenues of these northern terretories, plese see the Speca’s report here.

Source

UNAK

April 18, 2013
Civil Society in COP15

So far the major issues around the Copenhagen COP15 have concentrated on the participation of world leaders to one of the biggest gathering in the field of environmental law and politics.

The aim is to reach an agreement on post-Kyoto CO2 emission reduction. Many leading scientists maintain that the world’s CO2 rate has reached dangerous levels and that if nothing is done to reduce the emissions the world will face unprecedented consequences. Legally binding agreement for the world’s leading polluters is inevitably necessary, but it is debatable whether the political will of states is enough to create any change.

In addition to the politicians, Copenhagen has attracted a vast amount of representatives from different fields of civil society. In recent years, many global movements have been created around the action against climate change and many of them have now gathered to Copenhagen. On wednesday a small group of activists from 350 movement demonstrated outside the conference hall demanding fair and legally binding climate deal. Further, members from other global movements, such as Tck and many others are gathering to People’s Climate Summit, an NGO Summit, to draft what they call “A People’s Declaration”.

Despite the huge pressure to seal the deal in Copenhagen, some doubts have been expressed on whether the solutions that are on the table are the best ones and whether they actually solve any of the problems. Just last week one of the leading climate change scientists James Hansen from Nasa’s Goddard Insitute, expressed his doubts on the existing emission trade system comparing it to selling indulgences. He claimed that under the Kyoto mechanisms rich countries buy cheap emission credits from developing countries contributing that way to the existing economic unbalance in the world and some of the worst poverty scenarios. Further, it has been maintained that the Kyoto mechanisms do not actually address the real problem, the CO2 emission, but are one more scam for large corporations to gain money.

Here below you can watch Annie Leonard’s provocative and eye-opening short film on cap and trade, the main mechanism in use to combat CO2 pollution.

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pA6FSy6EKrM]

December 10, 2009
From remote island to Self-Government – Greenland’s journey towards independence

Through the times, the island today called Greenland has hosted many different peoples over varying periods. It has been estimated that first peoples came to the remote North-Atlantic island around 2500 BC and that the ancestors of the contemporary Inuit populations came from Alaska, Siberia and Canada, the Arctic thus having one Inuit population over a vast area of northern hemisphere.

First Norse settlers came to Greenland around the same time as Iceland was settled or around 1000 AD. These peoples vanished 400 -500 years later and it was not before early 18^th century that the Norse settlers came again. This time the Danish established a colonial relationship with the island. This relationship has in part remained to this date.

The Danish era

Despite the colonial relationship with Denmark from the early 18^th century, Greenland remained somewhat isolated until the beginning of the World War II. The Germans occupied Denmark in 1940 making new arraignments concerning Greenland possible. In 1941, an agreement with the US was signed placing Greenland under the protection of the US troops. Following this agreement, the US Air Force established an air base in Thule in 1951 and has remained there since.

During the decolonization period following the World War II Greenland’s colonial status was abolished and the island was integrated into the Danish Kingdom in 1953.

In 1 May 1979 following a referendum in Greenland, a Greenlandic Home Rule, an autonomous entity, was created granting Greenlanders own parliamentary organ as well as government. The Home Rule government gained jurisdiction in a series of important fields, such as internal administration, taxes, religious matters, fishing, hunting and agricultural affairs. Also social welfare, labour market affairs, education and cultural affairs, health service, housing and area protection were moved under internal administration of Greenlanders.

Greenland had joined the ECC (today EU) originally as a part of Denmark in 1973, but opted out from the agreement in 1985 obtaining thus a status as an Oversees country and territory (OCT) with special arraignments regarding its unique circumstances within the ECC. The new agreement with the ECC included among other things fisheries agreement allowing ECC quota in Greenlandic waters in turn of compensation. Greenland gained also territorial allocation from the European Development Fund instead of getting support from the ECC budget.

In 2005, Danish Parliament issued an Authorization Act, which granted Greenland a right to enter into international agreements in the areas that were under the jurisdiction of the Greenlandic Home Rule. This Act was a first step of what will become Self-Government on Sunday, 21 June 2009.

The Greenlandic Self-Government

In 2004 a Danish-Greenlandic Commission was established to evaluate whether the Greenlandic authorities could assume further powers and to make proposals how it could be done. The Commission concluded its work in April 2008 and a non-binding referendum on Greenland’s autonomy was held on 25 November 2008. 75% of the Greenlandic people voted in favor of further autonomy and it was decide that a Greenlandic Self-Government would be established in June 21, 2009.

The Greenland Self-Government Agreement reaffirms in most parts the practice that has been established and evolved during the years of the Home Rule. Some new areas of administration are however established in the new agreement.

Greenlandic will be the only official language in Greenland after June 21. To date, both Danish and Greenlandic have had an equal status in both education and administration.

Further, when Danish Government bills cover matters that affect also Greenland, the Self-Government must be consulted before the bill is presented to the Danish Folketing. During the Home Rule, the law provided such an opportunity, but the consultation was not obligatory, as it will be under the Self-Government.

Economies of Denmark and Greenland will be increasingly separated. As Greenland will become more independent economically, the government subsidies will be decreased. Moreover, new system of sharing revenue from mineral resource activities will be introduced.

Under the Self-Government, Greenland will become a subject under international law in matters that are within its jurisdiction. This means that Greenland can enter into agreements and establish bilateral and multilateral relationships with other states. In addition, Greenlandic government, Landsstyre, will be taken increasingly into consideration in foreign policy matters under the central authorities of the Danish Realm.

Other fields of responsibility are also moved under the authority of the Self-Government. Different areas of law and justice administration will become an internal matter of Greenland as well as security at sea, ship registration and maritime affairs. Weapon registration and licenses, upper secondary education and food and veterinary matters will also be covered by the Self-Government after June 21.

Conclusion

With the new Self-Government agreement, Greenland will take very important step towards becoming an independent state. However, the agreement allows Greenlandic people to decide themselves whether they will seek independency and when it should be done if ever. The agreement assures that the contemporary foundation of the society, built with Danish funding and assistance, will not be jeopardized, but Greenland will be given an opportunity to slowly mature and become the kind of society that Greenlanders themselves aspire.

Main sources

The Greenlandic-Danish Self-Government Commission’s Report on Self-Government in Greenland. April 2008.http://uk.nanoq.gl/sitecore/content/Websites/uk,-d-,nanoq/Emner/Government/~/media/46185A4413C54A3D89D3D16F1D38F0D3.ashx

Draft Act on Self-Government. http://www.amblissabon.um.dk/NR/rdonlyres/EDC5978E-71C2-467E-974A-598A01EEA562/0/DraftActonGreenlandSelfGovernment.pdf

Loukacheva, Natalia. The Arctic promise – Legal and Political Autonomy of Greenland and Nunavut. 2007. University of Toronto Press Incorporated. Toronto

Lectures in Polar Law, University of Akureyri, Iceland. Academic year 2008-2009. see: http://english.unak.is/?d=5&m=page&f=viewPage&id=246

June 19, 2009