In her doctoral dissertation, Sara Fusco, LL.M., examines how constitutional law addresses environmental harm affecting Indigenous Peoples in the Arctic through a comparative study of Canada, Finland and Norway. The dissertation shows that constitutional recognition of Indigenous rights is not enough to achieve reconciliation: effective reconciliation also requires meaningful Indigenous participation, appropriate distribution of decision-making authority, and consideration of cultural and intergenerational impacts in environmental governance.

The doctoral dissertation by Sara Fusco considers whether the mechanisms of constitutional law can accommodate the specific implications of environmental degradation for Indigenous cultures, livelihoods, self-determination and legal standing in the Arctic. In addition, the study examines whether restorative justice can provide a framework for assessing those responses. The study is situated within environmental constitutionalism which is understood as the constitutional framing of environmental protection through rights, democratic legitimacy and the allocation of public authority.

The constitutional conflicts examined in the dissertation are already central to contemporary debates concerning the green transition, climate policy, renewable energy, mining, conservation, fisheries, and the use of natural resources in the Arctic. Measures intended to protect the environment or respond to climate change may themselves generate new conflicts when they affect Indigenous lands and cultural practices.

“These disputes should not be approached only as questions of environmental efficiency or formal legal compliance, but also as questions of constitutional legitimacy: who participates in decision-making, whose knowledge is considered, how environmental and cultural harm is defined, and how authority over land and natural resources is distributed,” notes Sara Fusco.

In her dissertation, Sara Fusco has developed a framework which can help courts, legislators and public authorities evaluate whether environmental decision-making adequately incorporates Indigenous participation, culturally grounded environmental assessment and cumulative and intergenerational impacts. More broadly, the framework encourages an understanding of environmental governance in which the protection of Indigenous rights is assessed together with the institutional conditions necessary to make those rights effective.

“The comparative analysis of constitutional systems of Canada, Finland, and Norway ultimately showed that these constitutional systems do not fully satisfy requirements of restorative justice. This is the case particularly when Indigenous Peoples lack binding co-decision powers, judicial remedies cannot restructure governance relationships, or reforms remain dependent on politically fragile processes”, Fusco points out.

Constitutional law can create openings, but courts cannot do everything

Restorative justice is generally understood as an approach to conflicts that focuses on repairing harm and restoring relationships rather than simply identifying wrongdoing or imposing sanctions. In constitutional justice, restoration may instead operate through the remedies available within constitutional review.

“Depending on the constitutional system, courts or constitutional review bodies may invalidate or set aside measures that violate constitutional rights, require public authorities to reconsider decisions, interpret legislation consistently with constitutional and Indigenous rights, strengthen procedural duties such as consultation and participation, or identify constitutional deficiencies that require legislative or institutional correction,” Fusco says.

However, constitutional adjudication alone cannot deliver restorative justice. Courts cannot by themselves redistribute authority over land and natural resources or eliminate the institutional asymmetries that structure relations between states and Indigenous Peoples. Political processes, legislation, Indigenous institutions and co-management arrangements therefore remain essential.

“Constitutional adjudication should not be understood only as a mechanism for resolving individual legal disputes. In conflicts involving Indigenous Peoples and environmental harm, it can also form part of an ongoing process through which authority, participation and responsibility are negotiated in circumstances where land, culture, livelihoods and future generations are closely interconnected,” Fusco says.

“Its restorative potential therefore lies not in constitutional law resolving these structural relationships on its own, but in its capacity to recognise harm,” Fusco sums up.

Information on the public defence

The academic doctoral dissertation Environmental Constitutionalism in the Arctic: Indigenous Rights Recognition Through Environmental Restorative Justice by Sara Fusco, LL.M. (Polar Law and Comparative Public Law), will be publicly examined in the Faculty of Law at the University of Lapland on Friday 25 September 2026 starting at 12:00 pm (noon) (UTC +2) in Lecture Hall B127 (the main building of the University of Lapland, address: Yliopistonkatu 8, Rovaniemi, Finland).

The opponent is Professor Dorothée Cambou from the University of Helsinki, and the custos is Research Professor Kamrul Hossain from the University of Lapland.

The language of the event is English. The public defence can be followed online via livestream at https://blogi.eoppimispalvelut.fi/ulapland/.

Information on the doctoral candidate

Sara Fusco holds a master’s in Comparative Public Law from the University of Florence, Italy, and an LL.M. in Polar Law from the University of Akureyri, where she is currently an adjunct lecturer at the Faculty of Law.

Her research combines comparative legal methodology with environmental restorative justice as an evaluative framework and a Habermasian understanding of legitimacy, participation, and dialogical justice.

Further information

Sara Fusco
sfusco (at) ulapland.fi, sarafusco (at) unak.is

Information on the publication

Sara Fusco (2026), Environmental Constitutionalism in the Arctic: Indigenous Rights Recognition Through Environmental Restorative Justice. Acta Electronica Universitatis Lapponiensis 441. University of Lapland. ISBN 978-952-337-564-2. ISSN 1796-6310.

Permanent address of the electronic publication: https://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-952-337-564-2