Impressions of the International Polar Law Symposium 2023

Written by Thorsten Van Der Kooij

I am a second-year master’s student in Modern History and International Relations at the University of Groningen. Currently, I am working on a research project concerning the future of international cooperation in the Arctic in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

As part of this project, I participated in the International Polar Law Symposium in Tórshavn in the Faroe Islands, which took place from the 26th until the 28th of October, 2023. The symposium is organised every year in different venues. As the name suggests, seminars and lectures are given on various subjects during the conference. For example, one presentation concerned the draft constitution of Greenland, another the future of Antarctic tourism, and a third concerned the future of the Arctic Council. All in all, a large diversity of topics.

I enjoyed the entire conference. It was my first time at an international conference, and was really motivating. I met some of the more well-known polar scholars from all over the globe. The atmosphere was open and allowed for fantastic discussions on many different topics. The great diversity of topics also gives a great overview of the state of the academic field. The main concerns, of course, were the future of Russia in the Arctic and the future status of the Antarctic treaty system. Significant attention was also paid to matters of human rights, decolonisation and the indigenous population, especially after the highlighted media attention to boarding school incidents in Northern Canada. The tone at the Polar Law Symposium was not necessarily cheerful due to many uncertainties about the times ahead; however, hopeful tones were also detectable.

I went to the conference mainly to gauge how others had approached my research topic concerning Arctic cooperation in the future. Furthermore, it was an ideal opportunity to get to know others in the field of Polar law and politics as well as to see the Faerøer islands. The field of polar law is relatively small, meaning everyone knows each other. This also made the distance between early career researchers and renowned scholars small. I thought, “Ah, I have used concepts or ideas by this person at some point during my studies, but I never had a face connected to it.” Being able actually to discuss these ideas during lunch is highly rewarding.

Last but not least, a mention has to be made of the beautiful nature of the Faerøer. The environment is terrific: the step-empty mountainsides riddled with rivers and waterfalls are very pretty. The trip on the bus from the airport to Tórshavn is definitely one of the most scenic bus rides one can take.