Rights Across Borders? The Nordic Saami Convention in Finland and Norway

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to explore if the Nordic Saami Convention will improve the rights of the Sámi people across borders, especially in terms of self-determination, land rights and recognition of Sámi. Being the indigenous peoples of Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia, the Sámi face challenges in realising their rights across borders. One of the aims of the Convention is to strengthen the cross-border cooperation (Regjeringen.no, 2018, p. 2). Currently, Norway is the only Scandinavian country which has ratified ILO Convention No. 169, which is considered a prerequisite for the NSC. Having not been willing to ratify or implement this Convention, it is questionable how Finland and Sweden ought to commit to a more extensive convention such as NSC (Koivurova, 2008, p. 281). The process of implementation has been prolonged for eight years longer than what was previously estimated, illustrating areas of conflict between state parliaments and the Sámi parliaments. In this thesis, I will explore the underlying power structures of policy documents pertaining to indigenous peoples, and how the NSC deals with recognition of the Sámi, self-determination, and land rights. To achieve this, I will analyse the working group reports submitted by Norway and Finland, reviewing the NSC towards their national legislation and international obligations, submitted in 2007 and 2009.

Keywords: Indigeneity, Indigenous Peoples, Land Rights, Nordic Saami Convention, Sámi, Self-determination