Activity Report 2012 – English version
The Activity Report of the ÅIPI for 2012 has now been translated into English. It can be downloaded in pdf here.
What can Indigenous Peoples learn from the Åland Land Acquisition Regime?
Rhodri C. Williams works on post-conflict rule of law issues with the International Legal Assistance Consortium in Stockholm and blogs on land and property rights on TerraNullius.He is a former guest researcher at the Åland Islands Peace Institute, an enthusiastic sommarålänning, and the beneficiary of a grant from the Åland Culture Foundation to research how Åland’s rules on land acquisition can help to provide lessons for emerging understandings of indigenous land rights. Stockholm, May 2013 The autonomy regime enjoyed by the Åland Islands within Finland is an extraordinary political experiment that has withstood the test of time better than most of its kind. It has the authority of age, dating back to agreements brokered by the League of Nations during the interwar period. At the same time, the autonomy has not merely survived but thrived, having been progressively expanded in scope both during and after the Cold War. Perhaps most tellingly, Åland negotiated a path into the EU alongside Finland in 1994 that not only allowed it to retain the key features of its regime, but also endowed it with the confidence to negotiate hard for further arrangements seen as necessary to prevent its sub-national powers from being rolled over by […]