Organised hypocrisy? The implementation of the international indigenous rights regime in Sweden

Abstract

The recognition of indigenous peoples' rights has gradually grown stronger the last three decades but the actual effect of this emerging international indigenous rights regime on state behaviour seems dubious. In this paper the author analyses how international norms are translated, interpreted and reshaped in a domestic context through the conceptual framework of organised hypocrisy. The starting-point is that hypocrisy is the normal state of affairs in domestic politics. It is a response by political organisations, like national parliaments or governments, facing conflicting values, demands and interests: talk, decisions and action are decoupled or counter-coupled. The empirical focus of the article is the indigenous rights regime in Sweden, a country well known for its record of ratifying human rights conventions. The author shows how all political reforms in Swedish Sámi politics are justified (in political talk and decisions) by reference to international law, while the actual effects of this endorsement (the actions) are minimal. Moreover, an analysis of four recent legal cases shows that the Swedish legal tradition with weak judicial review is a hinder for the judiciary to challenge this organised hypocrisy by forcing the rhetorical endorsement of the international indigenous rights regime into action through court decisions.

Pathfinders for the Future? Indigenous Rights and Traditional Knowledge in Sweden

“…The status of the Saami in Sweden is ambiguous, and although the Swedish Parliament recognised the Saami as an Indigenous people of Sweden in 1977, it did not result in any real changes of the situation for the Saami. The recognition of the Saami as a People with a right to self-determination in 2006 (in the Swedish constitutional law since 2011) also did not specify the content of this right or its potential effect on the mandate of the Sámediggi, whose administrative duties remain limited to Saami cultural issues, including the Saami languages and administration of reindeer herding [3].…”

“…This is expressed in support for the United Nations, human and minority rights, gender equality, and international aid [6]. However, when it comes to Saami rights there has been a "gap between talk, decisions and action" [7] (p. 9) and Sweden has been criticized on an international level for its inability to recognise Saami land rights [3] (p. 1728).…”

“…The Swedish position has been explained in different terms, such as incompatibility with the Swedish legal tradition, legal difficulties with recognising the types of ownerships and users' rights associated with reindeer herding, wide-ranging legal and financial consequences of ratification, and fears that ratification might lead to conflicts between the Saami and the non-Saami population. Several comprehensive investigations on Saami land, fishing, and hunting rights have been launched [3] (p. 1726, 1727), and the slowness of the processes have often been justified as taking responsibility for a difficult question [11]. However, subsequent governments have declared that a ratification of the ILO 169 is a major objective, but not possible here and now [3].…”

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

“…Sweden's apparent reticence in implementing key parts of the international rights framework "at home" for its indigenous Sámi represents a conundrum for some researchers (e.g. Lawrence and Moritz 2019;Mörkenstam 2019). In this regard, conflicts between mining and Sámi rights have attracted particular interest.…”

The Girijas case and its implications for the Sámi hunting and fishing rights in Sweden

“…This discord between the domestic laws, tepid State action, and the reluctance to fully realise the UNDRIP through rights embedded in domestic laws, has led some scholars to term the system as 'organised hypocrisy'. 2 Originally, the herding rights were introduced to minimise the conflicts between the traditional herders and pastoralists, a trope of conflict familiar in other settler states like Australia. 3 The Reindeer Grazing Act of 1886 aimed to achieve two things.…”