The World Heritage Convention in the Arctic and Indigenous People: Time to Reform?

Citation

Marsden S (2014) The World Heritage Convention in the Arctic and Indigenous People: Time to Reform?. Yearbook of Polar Law Online, 6 (1), pp. 226-249. https://doi.org/10.1163/1876-8814_009

Abstract
This article analyses the role of the World Heritage Convention in the Arctic, particularly the role of Indigenous people in environmental protection and governance of natural, mixed and transboundary properties. It outlines the Convention in an Arctic context, profiles Arctic properties on the World Heritage List and Tentative List, and considers Arctic properties that may appear on the List of World Heritage in Danger. It gives detailed consideration to examples of Arctic natural, mixed, and potentially transboundary, properties of greatest significance to Indigenous people with reference to their environmental protection and management. In doing so, it reviews and analyses recent high-level critiques of the application of the Convention in the Arctic. Conclusions follow, the most significant of which is that the Convention and its Operational Guidelines must be reformed to be consistent with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People.

Keywords
World Heritage Convention; governance; Indigenous people; Arctic; reform; environmental protection

Journal
Yearbook of Polar Law Online: Volume 6, Issue 1

People

Professor Simon Marsden

Professor, Law