One People, Four States, Since 1956

The Sámi have lived across what is now northern Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia's Kola Peninsula for thousands of years, and every question that matters to them — grazing rights, mining licences, wind farms on calving grounds, river dams — is decided in four separate capitals under four legal systems. The Saami Council was founded in 1956 to act as one voice across those borders, making it among the oldest Indigenous peoples' organisations still operating anywhere, and it now brings together nine Sámi member organisations from all four states. It holds permanent participant status at the Arctic Council, and its influence runs well beyond the Arctic: the Council was instrumental in establishing the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues and in creating the UN Special Rapporteur on the rights of Indigenous peoples, machinery now used by Indigenous peoples worldwide.