This study considers international norms of indigenous right to land and compares them to Swedish law and preparatory works. In a Swedish context Samí land use, typically reindeer herding, is under increased pressure from mining, forestry and other extractions of natural resources. According to this study, the international norms are clear: there are customary rights to culture, encompassing land, and rights to consultation. There are also established rights to ownership of traditional lands and natural resources. There are disputes as to the strength of these rights but they can be considered international norms to different degrees. Furthermore, there are procedural requirements such as importance of customs and eased burden of proof.  These international norms are considered to a low degree in Swedish law. The only traces found are rights to culture, encompassing land rights, and reindeer herding rights, an expression of land rights. These rights are not implemented in relevant legislation. Critical Race Theory explains a lot: the importance of ethnicity and racism and their connection to power emerges clearly. The state has constructed the majority view of the Samí and distributed rights accordingly. Preparatory work underlines how difficult a task it is to define land rights. The law is allowed to remain indeterminate, a disadvantage for the Samí. When rights are adjudicated by the Supreme Court the meaning is weakened. At the bottom line is a colonial view which aids commercial interests.

Tore Andersson Hjulman: One with Nature: An Inquiry into the Renegotiation of Nature in the Conflicts between Nature Preservation and Sámi Rights during the Interwar Period.[Ett med naturen: En studie av hur naturen omförhandlades i mellankrigstidens konflikter mellan naturskydd och samiska rättigheter.] PhD dissertation in Swedish, Luleå University of Technology, Sweden 2017. In 1909 the Swedish national parks law was adopted with the assumption that theSámi people living in the areas to be preserved were, in principle, one with nature. Therefore the perception of their land as pristine was consolidated and they could be excepted from park regulations. About thirty years later the national park administration stated that the aim to keep the national park nature untouched would fail without a restriction of Sámi rights within the parks. The aim of this thesis is to investigate how the distinction of nature from culture was renegotiated during the conflicts that preceded and followed this new stance. Tracing the impulses that fostered the reactions of the state administration back to their original contexts, complex interactions of differing interests are revealed. These contexts are examined in three case studies. The first case centers on nomad school superintendent Erik Bergström and his warning of the effects on the national parks from reindeer herders activities. The intersection of nature preservation and Sámi politics sheds light on their common outset in the use of the nature-culture dichotomy in approaching the Sámi. This contributes to explain the resistance by which the interest of change was met by those invested in the prevailing state policy towards the Sámi.The second case concerns a conflict of Sámi land use in the Abisko national park by the early 1930s. Several factors that possibly induced state officials to react on Sámi fishing and hunting in the national park are illuminated. These include different understanding of nature preservation, the moral ecology among the Sámi and antagonism between Sámi reindeer herders and inhabitants in the railway towns.The third case involves concerns raised in the process of establishing a new national park in the Muttos/Muddus area. A shift in focus from mountainous to forest landscapes among nature preservationists resulted in the inclusion of new stakeholders and fields of knowledge about land use and its effects. This seems to have spurred problematizing of both the ideal of pristine nature and of Sámi land use. A conflict was triggered by the in-migration of two reindeer herding families.In conclusion, it will be argued that it was a series of quite contextually different conflicts that interacted to undermine the institutionalized demarcation of nature. This simultaneously challenged Sámi rights in the national parks and took place in ideological opposition to the foundation of segregationist Sámi policy. / Nature Preservation and Indigenous Rights

This study deals with the ethnopolitical mobilization among the Sami in Sweden during the first half of the 20th century. The investigation focus on why this mobilization took place, the demands the Sami made, and the strategies used to achieve these goals. Opposition towards the Swedish Sami policy was the most important reason for the political mobilization among the Sami. Both the formation of the Sami policy at the central administrative level, and the implementation of the policy at the regional and local level by the Lapp administration were criticised. During the first half of the period of investigation the Sami protests focused on policy decisions at central government level. During the later half of the period, it was the actions of the Lapp administration that triggered Sami activity. The central demands brought forward by the Sami movement concerned the position of the Sami in Swedish society. At the beginning of the period the Swedish Sami policy was based on the so called "Lapp shall remain Lapp" ideology. The Sami were looked upon as a reindeer herders by nature, who were weak and could not protect themselves against civilization, which was viewed as a threat to the cultural survival of the Sami. Therefore, they were to be protected by being segregated from the surrounding society. Only the reindeer herding Sami, however, were considered to be Sami which meant that a majority of the Sami population was not included in the Swedish Sami policy. A cultural boundary was drawn, which separated the Sami population into two large segments. Because of this, the main demands of the Sami movement were that the Sami should be granted an equal position in the Swedish society and that the Sami policy should include more aspects than just reindeer herding.Two main strategies were adopted by the Sami leaders to achieve the goals of the Sami movement. The first was to try to create a network of local Sami societies within a national Sami organization. As in Swedish society group interests were represented by a number of different organizations, Sami organizations were a precondition if the Sami were to be able to hold a dialogue with the Swedish authorities. However, during the period of investigation the Sami movement failed in its attempts to form a national Sami organization, which weakened the movement. The second strategy was directed at achieving more limited gains through goal-oriented actions, where the Sami were mobilized for shorter periods behind different demands. This second strategy was more successful during the period of investigation. However, ultimately the creation of a national Sami organization, was found to be a requirement if the Sami movement was to be able to influence the Swedish Sami policy. The formation of Svenska Samernas Riksförbund (National Union of the Swedish Sami) in 1950 was therefore an important step for the Sami movement.

This study is concerned with the drafting process of the 1948 Genocide Convention, specifically the deletion of the article regarding so called ”cultural genocide”. Sweden was one of the states who voted to delete the article, and this study asks the question why. Previous research on the article has concluded that the majority of the states voting to delete it were doing so to avoid being criminalized themselves due to their assimilationist policies towards minorities, and colonial governing. During negotiations Sweden explicitly referred to the Christianization of the Sami people, which further begs the question if Sweden were also acting because of those reasons. The study finds that, even though Sweden argued that cultural genocide was not as serious as the other forms of genocide, and that it was a better fit for a convention on human rights or minority protection, there is a real plausibility that the country were trying to avoid having a legally recognized genocide in its history. However, because of the vast amount of material available for interpretation of Sweden’s actions, more research is needed to make an even more certain conclusion.