Abstract

Excerpted From: Romain Chuffart and Aaron M. Cooper, The Future of a Melting Arctic: Implications for Indigenous Rights, American Journal of International Law Unbound 193 (2026) (27 Footnotes) (Full Document).

In her memoir, The Right to Be Cold, Inuk leader and activist Sheila Watt-Cloutier reflected on the transformative change happening to the Arctic and argued that preserving the Arctic and Inuit cultural survival are one and the same. As the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change highlighted, Arctic warming is affecting people’s livelihoods, cultural practices, economies, and self-determination. Much like elsewhere in the world, the histories and cultures of Indigenous Peoples in the Arctic are multiple and distinct. As the melting of the cryosphere accelerates, environmental changes threaten Indigenous Peoples’ ability to maintain their traditional livelihoods, culture, and rights, and simultaneously open the region to global economic activities. This creates a “double bind” for Arctic Indigenous Peoples. On one hand, they face the loss of traditional territories through environmental degradation due to anthropogenic climate change. On the other hand, they face a new wave of political and legal encroachment in the form of climate mitigation, including mineral extraction and renewable energy projects on Indigenous lands.

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The melting Arctic brings with it a fundamental normative tension between the global obligation to adapt to and mitigate the effects of climate change and the imperative to uphold Indigenous self-determination. The speed and intensity of environmental transformation in the region--and the challenge they pose to Indigenous rights--give new urgency to the need to move beyond a state-centered approach to rights. The impacts of climate change are not distributed equally, especially in the Arctic; those who contributed least to the crisis are bearing the heaviest burden of both the consequences of a changing climate and the “green” response. Consequently, to promote Indigenous climate justice, it is even more necessary than before to recognize the interdependence of land, people, and culture, which is the basis of the rights of Indigenous Peoples. The next step for international law is to solidify the principle that a state’s approval of developmental projects without genuine FPIC, whether for benefiting from or counteracting changes, are violations of obligations owed to Indigenous Peoples.

Nansen Professor in Arctic Studies at the University of Akureyri, Iceland.

Research Fellow in Law at Stavanger University, Norway.