Romain Chuffart Doctoral Defence

Doctoral Thesis Defence at the Faculty of Law, Durham University

On Friday 1^st of December 2023, Romain Chuffart, Adjunct at the Faculty of Law, University of Akureyri, successfully defended his doctoral thesis "Indigenous Sovereignty, Self-determination, and Rights: Normative Agency through the Rights-Based Approach in Multilevel Arctic Environmental Governance" at Durham University in the United Kingdom. His supervisors were Dr. Anashri Pillay (Durham Law School), Dr. Henry Jones (Durham Law School), and Prof. Philip Steinberg (Durham University's Geography Department). The defense committee was made up of Dr. Olivia Woolley (Durham Law School) as internal examiner and Prof. Timo Koivurova (University of Lapland, Finland) as external examiner. Romain's doctoral studies were sponsored by the Durham Arctic Research Centre for Training and Interdisciplinary Collaboration (DurhamARCTIC), funded by the Leverhulme Trust.

About the research

The thesis revolves around the intersection of human rights, the environment, and international law as a governance tool, with a focus on managing Arctic environmental changes and promoting environmental and decolonial justice. In doing so, the thesis develops an argument regarding Indigenous agency as the capacity to generate normative outcomes.

In the thesis, Romain analysed the extent to which the discourse of Indigenous rights has helped Indigenous people gain normative agency in environmental governance. The primary focus of this thesis is to investigate the effectiveness of mobilising the language of Indigenous rights in fostering Indigenous normative agency within Arctic environmental governance. A fundamental assertion underlying this thesis is that embracing the paradox of employing human rights discourse beyond the confines of the nation-state can facilitate decolonisation.

In turn, the thesis demonstrates that these outcomes reshape power dynamics and control among actors engaged in environmental governance beyond the national space and state sovereignty.

To explore concepts of sovereignty, self-determination, rights, and agency, this thesis conceptualises various spaces where environmental governance occurs and is shaped, encompassing physical, institutional, and legal dimensions of Arctic governance. Focusing specifically on the Arctic, this thesis analyses Arctic governance through three different levels geographical scales (i.e., global, regional, and local) and in different non-state context to assess how Indigenous rights are used to promote an aspect of self-determination and sovereignty: the ability to influence normative development regarding the environment.

The University of Akureyri sends its hearty congratulations to Dr. Chuffart on the successful defence of his thesis.