Completion of this seventh Polar Law Symposium marks also the day when the Symposium migrated near the South Pole, to the gateway of the Antarctica, Hobart Tasmania (Australia), with the able leadership by Dr. Julia Jabour. This does not mean that Antarctic legal issues have not been addressed in previous Symposia, but it is correct to say that in this year’s Symposium the Antarctic legal issues were predominating.
Arctic legal issues were also addressed in many presentations, e.g. Arctic Treaty discourse, Sami legal rights or EU’s legal competence in the Arctic, by the members of the UArctic’s Arctic Law Thematic Network; UArctic was also one of the hosts of this year’s Symposium. As Professor Koivurova said in his closing remarks of the Symposium, we should nurture this very rich legal imagination and practice in both Polar areas. Next year the Symposium will go back to the Arctic. Professor Betsy Baker and her team will be hosting the next Polar Law Symposium in both Fairbanks and Anchorage, at a time when the United States is a chair of the Arctic Council.
Prof Timo Koivurova, Lead, UArctic Thematic Network on Arctic Law, Arctic Centre, University of Lapland.