Indigenous Peoples' Rights and the Norwegian Courts Moving into 2021

• Author: Øyvind Ravna
• Position: Professor, Faculty of Law
• Pages: 1-3

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Citation: Øyvind Ravna. “Indigenous Peoples’ Rights and the Norwegian Courts Moving into 2021” Arctic Review on Law

and Politics, Vol. 12, 2021, pp. 1–3. http://dx.doi.org/10.23865/arctic.v12.2815

Arctic Review on Law and Politics

Vol. 12, 2021, pp. 1–3

1

Editorial

Indigenous Peoples’ Rights and the

Norwegian Courts Moving into 2021

Øyvind Ravna

UiT The Arctic University of Norway

Welcome to 2021 and Volume 12 of the Arctic Review. Over the past year, despite

the fact that the world has been shut down due to Covid-19, we managed to gather

a signicant number of well-qualied researchers to write thirteen excellent and

original articles to celebrate ten years of the Arctic Review. These articles were pub-

lished in an anniversary anthology, which is also available in a limited hardcover

edition entitled Ten Years of Law and Politics from an Arctic Perspective. For those who

have still not acquired the book, it is available from the publisher Cappelen Damm,

as well as academic bookstores. Previous to the anthology, we published three other

original articles, bringing the volume close to the peak year of 2018, when we pub-

lished eighteen original articles. I am grateful to the editorial team, the reviewers and

particularly to Nigel Bankes and Katia Stieglitz for their great effort and editorial

work. I would also like to thank all those who have submitted well-written and well-

researched manuscripts over the past year.

At the outset of this new year, I would like to use the opportunity to focus on the

legal protection of indigenous peoples’ culture and land rights in the Norwegian

courts of law. In recent years, the Norwegian Supreme Court has handed down judg-

ments that have provoked reactions in the Sámi communities, as they have neither

been perceived as well rooted in law and facts, nor in Sámi culture and legal under-

standing. Furthermore, these judgments have not been perceived as just and fair.

This has contributed to a weakening of the much-needed legitimacy of the courts

in the Sámi communities. It has also led to reactions at the Sámi political level. On

several occasions Sámi President Aili Keskitalo (NSR) has criticized the Norwegian

Supreme Court for a lack of cultural competence and thus the ability to safeguard

the legal security of the Sámi.

The Jovsset Ante Sara ruling (HR-2017-2428-A), in which the Supreme Court

upheld the administration’s decision that a young reindeer owner had to slaugh-

ter his herd, was a signicant contributor to the rst such statement by President