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Openness, transparency and public participation in the governance of uranium mining in Greenland: a legal and political track record

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 December 2017

Cécile Pelaudeix ,
Ellen Margrethe Basse  and
Natalia Loukacheva
Cécile Pelaudeix
Affiliation:
Department of Law, BSS, Aarhus Universitet, Bartholins Allé 16, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark PACTE-Sciences Po, Grenoble, France (cepe@cas.au.dk)
Ellen Margrethe Basse
Affiliation:
Department of Law, BSS, Aarhus Universitet, Bartholins Allé 16, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark
Natalia Loukacheva
Affiliation:
Political science Department, University of Northern British Columbia, 3333 University Way, Prince George, BC, Canada, V2N 4Z9
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Abstract

This article examines the implementation of the principles of openness, transparency and public participation in the decision-making regarding the conditions for uranium mining in Greenland from a legal and political perspective. The time frame covers the period from the exploration for minerals before World War II to 2016–2017 when the current Greenlandic authorities prepared a licence for a project of extraction of rare earth elements and uranium in Kvanefjeld. It is shown that the issue of openness, transparency and public participation in Greenland is a longstanding issue and that the current governance does not permit public access to a draft environmental impact assessment report, impairing public participation in decision-making, and preventing the environmental consequences of these activities from being considered as a public concern. It is argued that sovereignty–its consolidation and the accession to it–has impacted the design of governance in Greenland and that the constraints put on the full implementation of the legal principles of openness, transparency and public participation in the governance of uranium mining in Greenland, amongst other factors, point to a current hybrid political and legal order in the context of a political agenda of independence.

Type
Research Article
Information
Polar Record , Volume 53 , Issue 6 , November 2017 , pp. 603 - 616
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

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