Greenland, the Faroes and Åland in Nordic and European Co-operation – Two Approaches towards Accommodating Autonomies

• Published in: International Journal on Minority and Group Rights
• Main Author: Stephan, Sarah
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: Brill 2017
• Subjects: Political Science and International Relations; Geography, Planning and Development; Faroe Islands; Greenland; Faroes
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/15718115-02403004; https://brill.com/view/journals/ijgr/24/3/article-p273_273.xml; https://brill.com/downloadpdf/journals/ijgr/24/3/article-p273_273.xml

This article looks at the perplexing encounter between territorial autonomies and international organizations by exploring the legal-institutional frameworks for accommodating Greenland, the Faroe Islands and the Åland Islands within the Nordic Council/Nordic Council of Ministers (Norden) and the European Union ( eu ). In Norden an attempt has been made to translate the very core of autonomy, namely constitutionally protected legislative power, into a legal-institutional framework for multi-level governance. The small number of autonomies and the scope and scale of Norden allows for a one-size-fits-all solution. The encounter between autonomies and an international organization is not only more challenging in the case of the eu , it is also broader in scale and in scope. Despite the eu ’s individually and often densely regulated relationships with oct s and sui generis arrangements, dependent territories remain to some extent uncharted territories in the context of the eu .