Green Transition and Indigenous Peoples’ Rights

PhD position at the Faculty of Law 

The project’s field of research will be on green transition and Indigenous peoples’ rights. Transition to renewable energy is essential to mitigating the dangerous impacts of anthropogenic climate change. Indeed, a rapid transition to clean and sustainable energy by developing renewable energy infrastructures and technologies is required to reach the global climate goals. However, green energy transition pathways – i.e. the laws, policies, and mitigation measures, particularly development of large-scale renewable projects on indigenous territories – may pose significant impacts on the rights, livelihoods, and unique cultural identity of Indigenous peoples. The central research question is whether and to what extent (under what legal conditions) may Indigenous (cultural) rights be balanced against, and potentially restricted by, other fundamental rights particularly the right to a healthy environment within the framework of the green energy transition. The project may include a specific case study, for example, focusing on the Norwegian approach to energy transition and the rights of the Sami people. In this respect, the project should examine Norway’s legal and policy framework on the development and regulation of onshore wind energy projects and explore whether and to what extent they are crafted to address the rights of the Sámi people without abandoning Norway’s climate change mitigation targets. The project must examine relevant international human rights instruments pertaining to indigenous peoples, practices of UN treaty monitoring bodies, and jurisprudence of relevant regional human rights courts and commissions, as well as domestic courts on just transition litigations. The project may draw on perspectives from other disciplines including social and natural sciences.  

Sectors for secondments may include Indigenous peoples’ organizations, such as the Sami Council or the Sami Parliament, the energy sector or NGOs or public sector institutions dealing with human rights and/or environmental issues. Supervisors will be allocated based on the student’s preferences and the supervisors’ suitability for the project and their availability.