ABSTRACT
On January 23, 2020, in the Swedish Supreme Court, the Swedish Saami reindeer husbandry association Girjas successfully defended its right to dispose freely of its natural resources, such as small game and fish. The ruling represents important progress in the protection of Saami rights and freedoms linked to ancestral land. The ruling clarifies that Sweden’s obligations to protect Saami cultural heritage and its material basis go beyond a mere responsibility to facilitate a nomadic way of life. The obligations also include taking due account of international legal developments concerning Indigenous Peoples in the application of domestic laws and principles within a Saami context to ensure practical and effective legal protection of historical Saami rights and freedoms. This chapter analyses the Girjas Saami case ruling from the perspective of Peoples’/Indigenous Peoples’ right to dispose freely of natural resources. It highlights how the Supreme Court assessed the case through the content within existing sources of international law linked to Indigenous Peoples. It ends with a discussion of the wider impact of the ruling and an evaluation of the challenges ahead, reflecting, inter alia, on the Swedish government appointing the Judicial Inquiry Commission to review the Reindeer Herding Act.
