This is a past event.

In this lecture, Professor Rachael Lorna Johnstone will examine some of the challenges and opportunities presented by hydrocarbon activities in the marine Arctic in light of the rights of indigenous peoples and international human rights law. She will explain the conditions necessary for oil and gas activities to be compliant with international law. The discussion will draw on the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples 2007, various international human rights treaties and cases. The goal is to give participants a nuanced appreciation of the issue that will inform their understanding of indigenous rights in the Arctic as well as for comparable issues regarding large-scale resource activities on indigenous territory elsewhere in the World.  

Rachael Lorna Johnstone is Professor of Law at the University of Akureyri, Iceland, Professor of Law, Arctic Oil and Gas Studies, at Ilisimatusarfik (the University of Greenland) and Director of the Arctic Oil and Gas Research Centre.  She is the author of Offshore Oil and Gas Development in the Arctic under International Law: Risk and Responsibility (Brill 2015) and has published widely on the rights of indigenous people; international human rights law; international environmental law; due diligence; state responsibility; and Arctic strategies.

Event is partially sponsored/funded by the Department of Social Sciences, the College of Engineering, and by the Visiting Women & Minority Lecturer/Scholar Series (VWMLSS) funded by a grant to Institutional Equity and Inclusion from the State of Michigan's King-Chavez-Parks Initiative.