IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/minecn/v35y2022i2d10.1007_s13563-021-00280-5.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

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

Author

Listed:
  • Håkan Tarras-Wahlberg

    (University of Dundee)

  • John Southalan

    (University of Western Australia)

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.

Suggested Citation

  • Håkan Tarras-Wahlberg & John Southalan, 2022. "Mining and indigenous rights in Sweden: what is at stake and the role for legislation," Mineral Economics, Springer;Raw Materials Group (RMG);Luleå University of Technology, vol. 35(2), pages 239-252, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:minecn:v:35:y:2022:i:2:d:10.1007_s13563-021-00280-5
    DOI: 10.1007/s13563-021-00280-5
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s13563-021-00280-5
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s13563-021-00280-5?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Raitio, Kaisa & Allard, Christina & Lawrence, Rebecca, 2020. "Mineral extraction in Swedish Sápmi: The regulatory gap between Sami rights and Sweden’s mining permitting practices," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 99(C).
    2. Peter D. Cameron & Michael C. Stanley, 2017. "Oil, Gas, and Mining," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 26130.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Luo, Chunyang & Liu, Yang & Pan, Lu & Yang, Fucheng, 2024. "Navigating mineral policy development challenges in the global south using analytic hierarchy process," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    2. Johnson, Eva Liedholm & Ericsson, Magnus & Löf, Anton, 2023. "The mining permitting process in selected developed economies," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 131(C).
    3. Jerbelle Elomina & Ivana Živojinović, 2024. "Systematic Literature Review of Land Use Conflicts in Northern Sweden—Lessons Learned and Ways Forward," Resources, MDPI, vol. 13(6), pages 1-29, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ogbe, Michael & Lujala, Päivi, 2021. "Spatial crowdsourcing in natural resource revenue management," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    2. Leena Suopajärvi & Karin Beland Lindahl & Toni Eerola & Gregory Poelzer, 2023. "Social aspects of business risk in the mineral industry—political, reputational, and local acceptability risks facing mineral exploration and mining," Mineral Economics, Springer;Raw Materials Group (RMG);Luleå University of Technology, vol. 36(2), pages 321-331, June.
    3. Taner Turan & Halit Yanıkkaya, 2020. "Natural resource rents and capital accumulation nexus: do resource rents raise public human and physical capital expenditures?," Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, Springer;Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - SEEPS, vol. 22(3), pages 449-466, July.
    4. MahdaviMazdeh, Hossein & Saunders, Chad & Hawkins, Richard William & Dewald, Jim, 2021. "Reconsidering the dynamics of innovation in the natural resource industries," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    5. Hasan, Qaraman Mohammed, 2019. "The power of constitution for enacting energy law and managing natural resources: The case of the Kurdistan Regional Government's oil contracts," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 744-751.
    6. Johanna Järvelä, 2023. "The Mine or the Mire? Mobilising Place in Natural Resource Struggles," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 187(2), pages 237-254, October.
    7. Magdalena Suska, 2021. "Environmental Corporate Social Responsibility (ECSR) on the Example of Polish Champion Oil, Gas and Mining Companies," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(11), pages 1-18, May.
    8. Obadia Kyetuza Bishoge & Benatus Norbert Mvile, 2020. "The “resource curse” from the oil and natural gas sector: how can Tanzania avoid it in reality?," Mineral Economics, Springer;Raw Materials Group (RMG);Luleå University of Technology, vol. 33(3), pages 389-404, October.
    9. Fjellborg, Daniel & Beland Lindahl, Karin & Zachrisson, Anna, 2022. "What to do when the mining company comes to town? Mapping actions of anti-extraction movements in Sweden, 2009–2019," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    10. Zhu, Tianyuan & Balakrishnan, Jaydeep & da Silveira, Giovani J.C., 2020. "Bullwhip effect in the oil and gas supply chain: A multiple-case study," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 224(C).
    11. Johnson, Eva Liedholm & Ericsson, Magnus & Löf, Anton, 2023. "The mining permitting process in selected developed economies," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 131(C).
    12. Linda Wårell, 2021. "Mineral Deposits Safeguarding and Land Use Planning—The Importance of Creating Shared Value," Resources, MDPI, vol. 10(4), pages 1-18, April.
    13. Helmy Syamsuri & Amril Arifin, 2022. "Management strategy of increasing revenue potential to improve local government performance," International Journal of Research in Business and Social Science (2147-4478), Center for the Strategic Studies in Business and Finance, vol. 11(4), pages 40-49, June.
    14. Nhi Ba Nguyen & Bryan Boruff & Matthew Tonts, 2019. "The Regulatory Framework and Minerals Development in Vietnam: An Assessment of Challenges and Reform," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(18), pages 1-22, September.
    15. Beland Lindahl, Karin & Suopajärvi, Leena & Tulilehto, Mari & Poelzer, Gregory & Eerola, Toni, 2023. "Factors affecting local attitudes to mineral exploration: What's within the company's control?," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    16. Yeltsin Tafur & Eric Lilford & Roberto F. Aguilera, 2022. "Assessing the risk of foreign investment within the petroleum sector of South America," SN Business & Economics, Springer, vol. 2(6), pages 1-32, June.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:minecn:v:35:y:2022:i:2:d:10.1007_s13563-021-00280-5. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.