The initial idea that we came up with in the December 2010 seminar – after consulting the Arctic law TN members – was to establish fairly independent sub-groups. The leads for these three sub-groups have now been selected and they can be found from the TN’s website, which in full can be found at the Northern Institute for Environmental and Minority Law’s home site, at www.arcticcentre.org and from the University of the Arctic’s site at www.uarctic.org.

The three sub-groups are:
  1. Sub-group on Indigenous Peoples’ law, the lead being Oyvind Ravna from the University of Tromso Norway.
  2. Sub-group on Oil and Gas Legislation, which is led by Betsy Baker from the Vermont Law School at the United States (Senior Fellow for Oceans and Energy, Institute for Energy and the Environment).
  3. Sub-group on Arctic Governance, led by Natalia Loukacheva from the University of Toronto Canada.
The sub-groups have gradually started their functioning, in particular the sub-group on oil and gas. The sub-group of the TN on oil and gas law lead by Associate Professor Betsy Baker from Vermont Law School and the TN lead Timo Koivurova were invited as special guest editors to the prestigious Carbon & climate law review journal, which is one actions of the Arctic Law TN that will be published during 2012 (in the editorial, we will tell that this is one of the TN activities).

We have also used the rich expertise that we have in the Arctic Law TN to contribute to the assessments undertaken in the Arctic Council. Professor Nigel Bankes (who lead the making of the first legal chapter in Arctic Human Development Report I) and TN lead Timo Koivurova were nominated to lead the AHDR II’s legal chapter. We made a general call to the Arctic law TN as to who would be willing to contribute to the AHDR II legal chapter, and we received a lot of expressions of interest, some of whom were selected to the team of contributors. The same method we used also for the two other big assessments that are on-going or about to start, the resilience report and the Arctic Change Assessment (to which a Russian legal group under the TN has expressed their willingness to participate). In both we asked from the TN members as to whether they would be willing to contribute to these respective assessments, and now we have persons who have expressed their interest to take part in these processes.

One of the interesting developments has been the collaboration with the geopolitics TN led by Dr. Lassi Heininen. We have combined our activities in seeking further collaboration and made joint funding applications, of which some have already been successful (Globalization in the Arctic - Legal, political and environmental perspectives). We are now planning two major conferences as joint activities, the geopolitics TN leading the preparatory work for the Calotte Academy and we in the Arctic law TN leading the efforts to offer an interesting fifth Polar Law Symposium in Rovaniemi Finland 6-8 September 2012.

The TN has been active in participating in relevant international conferences and events from the Nuuk fourth Polar Law Symposium to Russia’s Salekhard Arctic law conference, where the vice-chair of the Arctic law TN Dr. Leena Heinämäki gave a presentation of the activities of the TN. The University of the Arctic has also offered the Arctic Law TN the possibility to participate as part of their observer delegation to Arctic Council meetings, an opportunity that we will certainly make use of.

Overall, the Arctic Law TN’s first year of operation has been very successful. We have been able to use our sub-groups and the whole circumwide (and beyond) membership of the TN for important Arctic Council assessments.



Timo Koivurova, chair of the Arctic Law Thematic Network
Research professor, director
The Northern Institute for Environmental and Minority Law
Arctic Centre, University of Lapland

Leena Heinämäki, Doctor of law
Vice-chair
The Northern Institute for Environmental and Minority Law
Arctic Centre, University of Lapland

Tanja Joona
Vice-chair
The Northern Institute for Environmental and Minority Law
Arctic Centre, University of Lapland