The Arctic Centre at the University of Lapland is participating in the new research project, in which a multidisciplinary international group of scientists is pondering how the long-developed Western juridical-political governing principles can be applied to the glacial environments. ”Project on Indeterminate and Changing Environments: Law, the Anthropocene, and the World”, coordinated by professor Philip Steinberg from the Durham University, has been granted a funding for three years by Leverhulme Trust, an UK foundation. The project is a part of a larger undertaking about ice law that has been developed by professor Steinberg, Arctic Centre Research Professor Timo Koivurova, and several other researchers.

In the project, Research Professor Koivurova is responsible for a research package that studies the juridical challenges of the often arbitrary juridical separation between the sea and land. “The governing principles that are based on the separate ways of governing between land and sea are problematic when applied to the ice of the Arctic Ocean, for instance”, says Koivurova.

A three-year research project, beginning in January 2016, may yet be granted an additional funding from the National Science Foundation, a major US source of research funding. From the Arctic Centre, also Senior Researcher Anna Stammler-Gossman is participating in the project. She is leading a research package that concentrates on the ways the indigenous people and the local communities in the Arctic adapt in and use their icy environments.

Additional information:

Research Professor Timo Koivurova
timo.koivurova@ulapland.fi, +358 40 551 9522

Senior Researcher Anna Stammler-Gossman
Anna.Stammler-Gossmann@ulapland.fi, +358 400 882 065