Re-focusing the European Green Deal on the Protection of the Environment, Security and Indigenous Peoples' Rights in the Arctic

ended

The Jean Monnet (JM) Module REPAIR focuses on the European Green Deal and its various impacts on environmental protection, security /geopolitics, and indigenous peoples’ rights in the Arctic. It offers an online, Master’s level, interdisciplinary, extracurricular, ECTS-accredited course that runs throughout the academic year at the Vrije Universiteit (VU) Amsterdam. It appeals to students from the Master’s programmes in Political Science, Law, Law and Politics of International Security, Environment and Resource Management, Earth Sciences, Environmental Humanities and Environmental Economics. REPAIR will include topics on green transformation of the (global) economy to mitigate climate change; accompanied by growing dependence on rare minerals; difficult choices surrounding increased mining activities in the European Arctic including Greenland; and how such dependencies and activities can be governed by the triple, and sometimes contradictory aims of preservation of the environment, maintenance of security in the face of growing geopolitical rivalry in the region, and the protection of the Arctic indigenous peoples’ (human) rights. REPAIR will include a minimum of seven online sessions of lectures/seminars and public opening and closing events each academic year, during which policy makers, and practitioners will come together with academic experts from the field and discuss policy option with the students in the closing session. The lectures will be given by teachers of VU Amsterdam, with two colleagues joining the team from University of Lapland, Finland. Master’s level students at University of Lapland will be welcome to participate in REPAIR and its activities. The lecture, seminar, and public event sessions as well as course materials (including a policy-outlook paper and an academic research output to be produced each year within this project) will be accessible through an online learning platform and a webpage. We expect 20 to 40 students to take this Module.