Mining and indigenous rights in Sweden: what is at stake and the role for legislation

Abstract

Mining and the permitting process for mineral projects in Sweden has been criticised as inadequately safeguarding the rights of Indigenous reindeer herding Sámi, who hold usufruct rights to more than half the country’s territory. There have been calls for Sweden to ratify the Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention (ILO 169) and to change its Mineral Law. This paper evaluates the extent of protection of Sámi rights — and not only those engaged in reindeer herding — in Sweden’s minerals permitting process. It also considers the implications if changes were made to align this process with the Indigenous-rights framework. The paper demonstrates that reindeer herding Sámi are, broadly, treated similar to landowners in the mineral projects permitting process. However, there is discrimination when it comes to being able to have a share in the benefits of a project: impacted reindeer herders have no such option whereas landowners do. Also, the permitting processes do not consider social and cultural impacts, nor are there obligations for the state to be sufficiently involved in consultation processes. Addressing the identified shortcomings would require only small changes to the Mineral Law and/or to its application and would be possible with only limited impacts on mining because the sector is not a significant user of land whilst it creates large economic values. However, extending those changes (to give parity between landowners and Sámi rights holders) in other important economic sectors which use more extensive land areas, would entail a considerable transfer of resources and associated power. Furthermore, changing the Mineral Law specifically would mean little in terms of safeguarding the rights of the majority of Sami who do not engage in reindeer herding. This suggests that calls for changes to mineral-related legislation to resolve indigenous land right issues are mis-directed or at least insufficient, and that other type of legislative change is required, fundamentally including resolving how extensive and strong the Sámi’s rights to land should be.

The quest for a sustainable industry: mining, path dependency and post-carbon regime in the European Arctic

“…Nonetheless, the quest for untapped mineral resources has led to resistance movements in their northernmost areas, such as the anti-mining movement in the village of Ohcejohka (Lassila 2018). In Sweden, the critical bottleneck hinges on the protracted land use conflict between mining development and the respect of Sámi rights (Raitio et al 2020;Tarras-Wahlberg and Southalan 2022). Land use planning is a key component of managing mining projects in the region, a challenge shared by all three countries.…”

Investment projects and the protection of indigenous peoples and territories in Colombia

“…These frameworks seem to be relatively more effective when private companies develop the extractive project, compared to cases where the state is the principal economic stakeholder (Kröger & Lalander, 2016). The Swedish case also illustrates the importance of the institutional design (here, the non‐ratification of ILO 169) for the protection of indigenous (Sámi) rights (Tarras‐Wahlberg & Southalan, 2022). In Brazil, policy implementation has been questioned in conflicts related to infrastructure works in the Amazon.…”

To Approve or not to Approve? A Comparative Analysis of State-Company-Indigenous Community Interactions in Mining in Canada and Sweden

“…At the core of this controversy is land use conflicts between resource extraction and reindeer herding, a traditional livelihood of the Sámi (Lawrence and Kløcker Larsen, 2019 ; Beland Lindahl et al, 2018 ). Insufficient, or inadequate planning and consultation (Lawrence and Kløcker Larsen, 2017 ; Sehlin McNeil, 2017 ; Pölönen et al, 2020 ) and disputed Indigenous rights in mining legislation and permitting are key issues (Lawrence and Moritz, 2019 ; Raitio et al, 2020 ; Tarras-Wahlberg and Southalan, 2022 ).…”