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This text interrogates normative conceptions of indigenous self-determination and the structures of indigenous self-government institutions, arguing that indigenous self-determination is not achievable without restructuring all relations of domination beyond that with the state; nor can it be secured in the absence of gender justice. It demonstrates that the current rights discourse and focus on indigenous-state relations is limited in scope and fails to convey the full meaning of self-determination for indigenous peoples.

Surveying existing literature, this article offers a preliminary assessment of the intersection of Indigenous governance and Arctic extractive industries, with a special focus on how Indigenous governance institutions position themselves vis-à-vis resource extraction in three regions: Nunatsiavut (Labrador, Canada), Greenland and Sápmi (the Sámi territory in Scandinavia). As a survey of existing scholarship, interviewing representatives of the extractive industry or Indigenous governments was beyond the scope of this article and hence, the analysis and conclusions are both preliminary and schematic. They do demonstrate, however, that the relations and strategies vary considerably and tend to depend on the degree and jurisdiction of the Indigenous self-governing authority. Further, they point to a pressing need for more detailed research in this area.

This article examines the implementation of Greenland's self-government (commonly referred to as self-rule) through an analysis of the Greenland government in the first four years of the Greenland Self-Government Act (SGA). Greenland and its government are numerically dominated by the Inuit, one of the indigenous peoples of the Arctic. The article begins with an overview of Greenland as a country and its political development, from a Danish colony to the 2009 Greenland SGA. After explaining Greenland's governance structure and the role of Inuit governance in Greenland's parliamentary system, it analyses the implementation process of the self-government agreement. It is argued that the SGA with its main focus on modern nation-building within the framework of Western institutionalism constitutes a unique means of implementing indigenous self-government. It revisits the norm of the right of indigenous peoples to self-determination understood primarily as a collective human right and sets a precedent within the framework of indigenous rights in international law.

This article compares three environmental assessment (EA) cases in Nunatsiavut, Nunavut, and the Northwest Territories (NWT) to better understand how resource decision-making processes in northern Indigenous mixed economies are gendered. Advances in Indigenous jurisprudence and Indigenous peoples' assertions of their rights to lands and territories have influenced new cooperative resource management institutions and associated environmental assessment frameworks. Though previous research has pointed to the systemic ways in which EAs undermine self-determination, there has been little attention to how gender influences EA processes and outcomes. This article contributes to emerging scholarship on gender and EAs through a thematic analysis of the environmental assessments for the Voisey's Bay Mine and Mill in Nunatsiavut (1997); the Meadowbank Mine in Nunavut (2004–2006); and the Mackenzie Gas Project (2003–2009). The cases examined reflected a spectrum in the extent to which gender is accounted for and attended to in EA processes. Notwithstanding their differences, Indigenous women's interventions in each case challenged the narrowly scoped treatment of gender in EA processes by describing their broad concerns with development. Furthermore, in each case, EA processes emphasized participation in employment rather than community well-being, and inadequately addressed women's traditional harvesting activities. We argue that in failing to account for the totality of northern livelihoods, the EA process privileges resource extraction, re-inscribes gender hierarchies, and undermines Indigenous mixed economies. We conclude by offering several criteria for the successful inclusion of gender issues in the scope of EAs and reflecting briefly on new developments in the legislative framework for EAs and Indigenous governance initiatives that may support more fulsome inclusion of gender issues.