Workshop advances research collaboration on Sámi rights and Indigenous legal traditions
A workshop co-organised by the GRIP-Bear project and MultiBEING brought together scholars and practitioners at the University of Lapland to discuss Sámi rights, legal traditions and the implications of environmental and climate policies across the Barents-Euro Arctic region.
Photo: Thora Herrmann, Christina Allard, Leena Hansen and Kamrul Hossain at the Arctic Centre. 📷: Asa-Marie Kultima, Arctic Centre
On 16 September 2026, the GRIP-Bear project (Research Collaboration on Climate Change and Green Energy Transition and Rights of Indigenous Peoples in the Barents-Euro Arctic Region), funded by the Barents Euro-Arctic Council and the MultiBEING CoE, co-organised an exploratory workshop at the Arctic Centre, University of Lapland. The event focused on developing collaborative research projects related to Sámi rights in Finland, Norway and Sweden. The main organisers from our CoE team were Kamrul Hossain (University of Lapland) and Christina Allard (CoE visiting professor, University of Lapland), together with Endalew Enyew from UiT–The Arctic University of Norway.
At the workshop, Leena Hansen (University of Lapland) presented the CoE, outlining its legal work package and exploring opportunities for collaboration with ongoing and future projects. One of the central themes of the workshop was the development of Sámi methodologies related to siida laws, árbediehtu, Sámi customs, legal traditions and legal pluralism.
Another key theme concerned EU environmental and climate legislation and its impacts on Sámi rights, culture and reindeer husbandry. Malin Brännström (CoE visiting professor, University of Lapland) and Thora Herrmann (CoE collaborator, University of Oulu) highlighted the complex and often problematic effects of EU law on the Sámi and stressed the need for intensified academic research on the issue, a point also emphasised by representatives of the Saami Council.
