Saami Council has invited EMRIP to Norway to discuss protection of the Saami people and culture against industrial projects
Photo: Herbert Aust from Pixabay
The Saami Council has invited the Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (EMRIP) to a country engagement to Norway to discuss Norway’s policy to protect the Saami people and culture against industrial development projects in the Saamiland (Sápmi).
In Norway there has been a considerable increase of industrial projects in Sápmi negatively affecting the traditional Saami livelihoods. There are now several land encroachment projects that have either already been carried out or are being planned to Saami traditional lands in Norway. The Saami Council’s opinion is that in these cases the nation state has violated the land rights, self-determination right, cultural rights and property rights of the Saami people.
Also the principle of free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) Article 32 has not been implemented and respected in these land encroachment cases.
The Saami Council wants to emphasize that the Saami face aforementioned problems in every nation state in which they traditionally live (Norway, Finland, Sweden and Russia) and that the problem in question does not only occur in Norway. However, in the request to EMRIP the Saami Council has focused only on those cases that target the Saami territory on the Norwegian side, as several projects are currently pending on the Norwegian side, although Norway has ratified the ILO Convention 169 (ILOC169).
The purpose of the country engagement request to the EMRIP is to assist Norway and the Saami people in identifying the need for and providing technical advice regarding the development of domestic legislation and policies relating to the rights of the Saami as an indigenous people.
