The group welcomes scholars with different academic backgrounds, for example Arctic anthropologists of indigenous religions and communities, historians, lawyers, cultural ecologists and philosophers.
The group organises conferences, seminars, and other meetings and events or online discussions to exchange or share ideas. Joint writing or funding applications are also appreciated activities.
In particular, the aim of the group is to try, by many academic activities, to answer two questions:
- What is "Arctic indigenous peoples' "law from the point of view of Western philosophy of law?
- What is "law" for indigenous peoples in the Arctic?
After this new sub-group, the Thematic Network on Arctic Law is divided into four independent sub-groups:
- Indigenous Peoples’ Law (Leader: Professor Øyvind Ravna, University of Tromsø)
- Oil and Gas Legislation (Leader: Associate Professor Betsy Baker, Vermont School of Law)
- Arctic Governance (Leader: Natalia Loukacheva, University of Toronto)
- Philosophy of Law in the Arctic (Leader: Dawid Bunikowski, University of Eastern Finland)
For more information, see the description of the sub-group Philosophy of Law in the Arctic.