President Donald Trump has provoked strong reactions with his proposition to buy Greenland, not the least because the right to self-determination is a fundamental principle in international law, allowing peoples to freely determine their political status and pursue their economic, social, and cultural development.
Nanortalik, Greenland. Photo: Jim Griffin via Flickr (CC-BY)
Home Rule
Greenland has a long history as a colony of the Kingdom of Denmark and was fully incorporated into Denmark as late as 1953. However, representatives of the Danish government and indigenous Greenlanders have discussed Greenland’s autonomy for decades. The first major milestone on the path towards self-rule was the enactment of the Greenland Home Rule Act of 1978. Whereas Greenland was recognized simply as ‘a distinct community within the Kingdom of Denmark’, the Act allowed for the transfer of legislative and executive powers and responsibility for expenditure to the home rule authorities in a number of fields, including organization of home rule and local government, direct and indirect taxes, fishing and hunting, planning, legislation on trade and business, social welfare, education and cultural affairs, health services, transportation, and protection of the environment.
In 1985, Greenland withdrew from the EU to become a European overseas territory due to disagreements over the right to fish in Greenlandic waters. In 2009, the European Parliament passed a bill to ban imports of seal products to EU member states, effective from August 2010. Despite that the ban exempted seal products hunted by aboriginals, Inuit organizations in Canada and Greenland filed a lawsuit with the European General Court, challenging the European Parliament’s assertion that seal hunting is “inhumane”.
Self-Government
A new framework for self-government, replacing the Home Rule arrangement, came into force with the Act on Greenland Self-Government (21 June 2009), based on a proposal drafted by the Greenland-Denmark Self-Government Commission. The Act opens for gradual further transfer of powers and responsibilities from Denmark to Greenland in areas such as administration of justice, policing and the establishment of courts of law. The Act also provides for the Greenland authorities to assume control of the management of mineral and oil resources in Greenland. The preamble to the Self-Government Act recognizes the people of Greenland as a people with the right to self-determination under international law, stipulating that, if the people of Greenland decide to seek independence, negotiations are to commence between the governments of Denmark and Greenland. An independence agreement must, however, have the consent of the parliaments of both Greenland and Denmark and the endorsement of a referendum in Greenland.
Greenland’s Self-Government Authority relies heavily on economic transfers from the Danish Government. The viability of self-government for Greenlanders depends on their ability to generate income from their natural resources. International instruments such as the International Labor Organization (ILO) Convention No. 169 and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UN-DRIP) have been pivotal in affirming their rights to land, territory and resources. These documents recognize the rights of indigenous peoples to own, use, develop, and control the lands and resources they have traditionally occupied or used.
Sovereignty and Multilateralism
In recent years, new mechanisms for transnational cooperation have emerged in the Arctic, with implications for indigenous self-government. The Arctic Council, which includes Arctic states and indigenous organizations as permanent participants, has emerged as a key forum for discussing issues related to resource management and environmental protection. Indigenous organizations such as the Inuit Circumpolar Council (ICC) play a crucial role in these discussions, advocating for the rights and interests of indigenous peoples.
The International Labor Organization (ILO) and the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII) have championed the rights of indigenous peoples with significant impacts on the way indigenous rights are negotiated in the Arctic. ILO Convention No. 169 concerning Indigenous and Tribal Peoples in Independent Countries (1989) was a milestone for international acceptance of the concept of indigenous rights. Convention No. 169 (C169) accords substantial rights of ownership and possession over traditionally occupied or accessed land and resources to indigenous peoples (Article 14.1). The Convention further stipulates that: ‘The rights of the peoples concerned to the natural resources pertaining to their lands shall be specially safeguarded. These rights include the right of these peoples to participate in the use, management and conservation of these resources’ (Article 15.1).
The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UN-DRIP) was adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2007 by a majority of 144 countries, against the vote of only four countries: Canada, the United States, New Zealand and Australia, and with 11 abstentions (including Russia). This declaration affirms that indigenous peoples have ‘the right to the lands, territories and resources which they have traditionally owned, occupied or otherwise used or acquired’ and ‘the right to own, use, develop and control’ these lands, territories and resources (Article 26.1 and 26.2). Indigenous peoples also have the right of redress or equitable compensation for land, territories and resources ‘which have been confiscated, taken, occupied, used or damaged without their free, prior and informed consent’ (Article 28.1). Importantly, the declaration recognizes that indigenous peoples have the right to self-determination, and thus to ‘freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development’ (Article 3), although not ‘authorizing or encouraging any action which would dismember or impair, totally or in part, the territorial integrity or political unity of sovereign and independent states’ (Article 46.1).
Greenland’s Natural Wealth
The governance of natural resources is a critical aspect of Greenland’s self-determination. The Arctic region, including Greenland, is rich in mineral and hydrocarbon resources. According to the US Geological Survey, the Arctic is expected to hold about 22 per cent of the world’s undiscovered, technically recoverable conventional oil and natural gas resources (about 13 per cent of undiscovered oil reserves, 30 per cent of natural gas, and 20 per cent of natural gas liquids). Greenland waters are believed to be particularly rich in oil and may contain reserves of up to 50 billion barrels. The management of these resources is not only a matter of economic development but also of cultural preservation and environmental sustainability.
The Greenland Self-Government Act provides for the Greenland authorities to assume control over the management of natural resources, which is intended to ensure that the local population benefits from their extraction. However, sustainable resource governance is not an easy task. On the one hand, the ICC and other indigenous people’s organizations have called for stringent environmental protection measures for oil and gas drilling in the Arctic, while firmly opposing uranium mining. On the other hand, hydrocarbons and mineral extraction also provide self-government institutions with a key source of revenue that helps them achieve greater economic independence.
- Åshild Kolås is a Research Professor at PRIO. This blog post is based on insights from her article in Strategic Analysis: “Indigenous Rights, Sovereignty and Resource Governance in the Arctic“.
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