Arctic Yearbook 2015 | Page 221

221 Arctic Yearbook 2015 In 2015, five years later, another case, as mentioned in the first part of this article,11 was brought before the Federal Court of Appeal, and the ruling resulted in a different decision. In the first part of the article I raised the issue of the application of UNDRIP in answering the issue of the requirement for adequate consultation in that particular case. Another issue, out of a total of four, was addressed in this case: do the applicants have the standing to bring the application? If one connects this issue with domestic law, it can be related to the interactions between national (federal) and regional (territorial) level, and the empowerment of public and ethnic local institutions. The lawyers for the consortium, as well as the Crown, argued against the applicant’s right to file the legal challenge, suggesting it should instead have been filed on their behalf by a regional or territorial Inuit association which enjoys specific rights under the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement (Rogers 2015). The lawyer representing the companies claimed that none of the applicants were granted collective rights under the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement, and that none of them had the right to be consulted (Rogers 2015). Interestingly, on the issue of public standing the judge concluded that HTO-Clyde River had a real stake and genuine interest in the issues and should be granted public interest standing. The judge did not consider the case of the hamlet of Clyde River (nor the case of its mayor), considering it sufficient that one of the applicants had the standing to assert issues relating to Aboriginal or treaty rights12; she explained that had she found it necessary to decide on the Hamlet public interest, she would have seen relevant to consider that while the respondents rely on the participation of the applicants to claim that the consultation was a robust one, on the other hand they deny them the right to challenge the Decision. As explained in part 1, the case was lost: the judge ruled that consultation processes were adequately conducted. These two cases illustrate the difficult process of implementation of Land Claims Agreements and the complex governance setting in Nunavut, where the public government (the government of Nunavut) and an Inuit organisation (Nunavut Tunngavik Inc.) are both involved in the governance of the territory, a situation which has been characterised as a horizontal governance system (Loukacheva 2007; Rodon 2014) creating the potential for conflict in various areas. This is the case in the offshore hydrocarbon resources area where public authority at the federal and regional level and indigenous organisations are involved in the governance process. In these arrangements, various interests but also legal systems interact, pertaining to the rights of indigenous peoples, constitution law and administrative law, civil law, realising vertical but also horizontal legal pluralism, and contributing to a complex governance setting of offshore oil and gas activities. It remains to be seen what could be the empowerment of the local level in the issues of the impact of offshore activities when claims are based upon Aboriginal or treaty rights. The judgment of HTOClyde River, Clyde River v. Canada did not answer the question of whether the hamlet, whose purpose according to the Hamlet Act includes providing good government and developing safe and viable municipalities, had standing in an application. According to the current governance system, the legitimacy of an Inuit organisation (like the QIA) to oppose a public government decision appears to be stronger than a local public administration (the Clyde River Hamlet). This sheds light on the decision of the Nunavut Association of Municipalities to support the Clyde River Hamlet and pass a resolution to call on the governments of Canada and Nunavut to respect the local council and its Cécile Pelaudeix