Indigenous Rights, Autonomy, Empowerment & Environment

Mid-January 2025: Call for Papers

30 April 2025: Abstract submission deadline

30 June 2025: Acceptance of papers

May 2025 – 20 October 2025: Registration Open

22-24 October 2025: 18th Polar Law Symposium, Nuuk

30 November 2025: Submissions to Yearbook of Polar Law

The overarching theme of the symposium, Indigenous Rights, Autonomy, Empowerment and Environment, encourages attention to unresolved and emerging issues in polar law as well as Greenland’s unique legal, constitutional, political, and historical positions. During the Arctic Council chairship of the Kingdom of Denmark 2025-27, Greenland will be at the heart of Arctic geopolitics. In the Antarctic and Southern Ocean, global tensions put increasing pressure on the Antarctic Treaty System and efforts to protect the vulnerable environment while ensuring that the continent remains a zone of peace and science. The emerging discourse of the ‘Third Pole,’ now included in the Arctic Council’s work, the BBNJ Agreement, and competing visions on governance of the international deep seabed - a ‘Fourth Pole’ - point to the importance of further internationalizing polar law scholarship. The organisers have identified six, broad sub-themes with suggestions for topics for panels and presentations.

Decolonisation of the Polar regions

• Independence, Free Association, Self-Government and Autonomy
• Decolonisation in an Antarctic context
• Decolonial legal research and education: method and substance

The Arctic Council under the Kingdom of Denmark Chairmanship

• Greenland, Danish and Faroese Priorities: goals and implementation
• The Arctic Council: state of affairs 11 years after the Russian annexation of Crimea and 3 years after the full-scale war on Ukraine
• Permanent Participants’ priorities, leadership and expectations

Telling history “through our own eyes”

• Historic inquiries in Greenland
• Reconciliation in Sápmi and for the Kven, Lantalaiset and Tornedalian Peoples
• Implementing the Calls to Action in the Canadian Truth and Reconciliation Report
• Pathways for reconciliation in Alaska
• Archival sovereignty 

Private Law and Industries in the Polar Regions

• Indigenous leadership in economic development
• Mining in Greenland
• Shipping, insurance and tourism in the polar regions
• Trade and investment
• Just transition

Environmental Law in the Polar Regions

• Indigenous conceptual frameworks
• Transforming ocean governance
• Biodiversity protection
• Climate change mitigation, adaptation and reparations

Global Polar Law

• Voices from beyond the Arctic and Antarctic Treaty States
• The Himalayan region
• Implementation of the BBNJ Agreement
• The deep seabed as a “Fourth Pole”

You can view and download the program for the Polar Law Symposium in July - August 2025.

Sara Olsvig, Chair, Inuit Circumpolar Council

Sara Olsvig is Chair of the Inuit Circumpolar Council in the term 2022 to 2026. Olsvig is a long-time Indigenous Peoples’ rights and human rights defender, and a politician who has served as member of the Parliament of Denmark (2011–2015) and the Parliament of Greenland (2013–2018). Olsvig was Vice Premier and Minister for Social Affairs, Families, Gender Equality and Justice in the Government of Greenland from 2016 to 2018. Sara Olsvig actively contributed to the work of the Constitutional Commission of Greenland, the Human Rights Council of Greenland and was member of the UN Secretary-General’s Panel on Critical Energy Transition Minerals. Olsvig holds a Master of Science in Anthropology and currently pursues a PhD-degree at Ilisimatusarfik, the University of Greenland. Olsvig is a recipient of the 2023 Womenomics Inclusion Award. Sara Olsvig is Inuk, and was born in Nuuk, Greenland, where she resides with her partner and their children.

Alan Hemmings, Professor, University of Canterbury, New Zealand 

Dr Alan D. Hemmings is a Canberra-based specialist on Antarctic governance and an Adjunct Professor at Gateway Antarctica Centre for Antarctic Studies and Research at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch NZ. He has substantial experience across the Antarctic, Subantarctic and Southern Ocean, and in the fora of the Antarctic Treaty System. Originally an Antarctic biologist, he transferred his research and writing to the Antarctic social sciences in the 1990s, since when his focus has been Antarctic geopolitics, including the roles of great power politics and historic claims to territorial sovereignty on the contemporary functioning of the Antarctic regime. His published work includes over 140 articles or chapters and 6 books. He is currently writing A Research Agenda for Polar Law with Timo Koivurova and editing the Handbook on the Politics and Governance of Antarctica: The New Strategic Context with Peder Roberts and Klaus Dodds. Hemmings’ public-interest work has included advocacy for Antarctic environmental protection and Rights of Nature in Antarctica.

Location and Accommodation

The 18th Polar Law Symposium will be held at the Hotel Hans Egede in the centre of Nuuk. A block reservation of rooms has been made for symposium participants and these will be available to book when registration opens.

Other hotels are available in Nuuk in easy walking distance of Hotel Hans Egede, including:

• Hotel Hans Egede Express
• Hotel Aurora
• Hotel Søma
• Nordbo Hotel

Arrival in Greenland

The expanded airport runway in Nuuk alongside a new terminal opened in Fall 2024.

This facilitates direct flights to Copenhagen and, in summer, the United States. (Passengers no longer need to change in Kangerlussuaq.) Direct flights are also available from Keflavík, Iceland. It is possible that additional routes will open in due course.

At the present time, Air Greenland, Icelandair and SAS are all offering fights to Nuuk.

Travel within Greenland

For those wishing to make the most of their time in Greenland, additional travel arrangements and tours can be organized through locally owned and operated travel agency Taavani.

Organising Committee for the 18th Polar Law Symposium

• Professor Rachael Lorna Johnstone, University of Akureyri & Ilisimatusarfik.
• Professor Maria Ackrén, Nasiffik, Ilisimatusarfik.
• Dr Antje Neumann, Associate Professor, University of Akureyri.
• Dr Gitte Adler Reimer, Professor and Rector, Ilisimatusarfik.
• Dr Romain Chuffart, Nansen Professor of Arctic Studies, University of Akureyri.
• Professor Kamrul Hossain, Arctic Centre, University of Lapland.
• Dr Clement Scavenius Sonne-Schmidt, Research Coordinator, Ilisimatusarfik.
• Dr Annemette Nyborg Lauritsen, Ilisimatusarfik.
• Rúnar Gunnarson, University of Akureyri.

and the Editors in Chief of the Yearbook of Polar Law

• Professor Timo Koivurova, Arctic Centre, University of Lapland.
• Professor Guðmundur Alfreðsson, University of Akureyri (Emeritus), Iceland.
• Professor Akiho Shibata, Polar Cooperation Research Centre, Kobe University, Japan.

Supporting Organisations of the Polar Law Symposia

• The Arctic Centre, University of Lapland, Finland.
• The University of Akureyri, Iceland.
• The University of Arctic and its Arctic Law Thematic Network, Finland.

Interim Secretariat of the Polar Law Symposium and the Yearbook of Polar Law

• Polar Cooperation Research Centre, Kobe University (Japan).

Inquiries

• For inquiries regarding the 18th Polar Law Symposium, please email Rachael at rlj@unak.is. 

Coming in January 2025.

Read more information about The Yearbook of Polar Law here.