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The Minamata Convention, which entered into force on 16 August 2017, is a global, legally binding instrument on mercury. The initiative on the Minamata Convention was mainly driven by research showing negative effects on human health and the environment in the Arctic. The Arctic Council, an intergovernmental forum promoting cooperation on Arctic issues, and its Working Group, AMAP, played an important role in the process leading up to international negotiations on the Minamata Convention. This paper elucidates the evolutionary process in which scientific knowledge, herded by an intergovernmental, regional forum, is involved and forms the basis for a legally binding agreement. The paper provides new insight on multilevel governance of the mercury issue and unravels the role that AMAP has played in this dynamic process.

De internasjonale menneskerettighetene er under diskusjon både internasjonalt og i Norge. Noen mener at beskyttelsen av disse rettighetene ikke er god nok. Andre hevder at det har gått inflasjon i hva som kalles menneskerettigheter, og at det internasjonale systemet gjør store inngrep i hva som bør overlates til nasjonale demokratiske organer

Naval blockade is an old form of warfare where the current restatement of customary international law on this issue – the 1994 San Remo Manual – leaves something to be desired. The article considers the history of the concept and its current regulation like the requirements for establishing a naval blockade and addresses also issues in relation to its enforcement.

In this paper we explore how post-petroleum security is continually shaped by both the micropolitical practices of everyday life as well as the changing geopolitics of energy landscapes. We focus in particular on the two-decade long struggle over access to hydrocarbon deposits outside the Lofoten, Vesterålen and Senja archipelago groups (LoVeSe), and show how local security perspectives permeate both national and international debates concerning the future of oil and the global climate challenge. These developments, we argue, are taking place in a paradoxical conjunction with Norwegian political establishment who along with the oil and gas industry insist on continued petroleum dependency as the only viable future. We further investigate how particular controlling measures have determined past, present and future narratives, and assess how alternative ideas that include multiple possible trajectories have found their way into national and global debates despite these efforts. The argument permeating this paper states that while oil remains a security concern to both proponents and opponents to oil development in the Arctic, the extent to which this situation is seen as a threat or a security provider varies greatly.