## Facts

- Ilmari Länsman and 47 other Sámi reindeer breeders from the Angeli/Inari area challenged Finland’s authorization of stone quarrying on Mount Etelä-Riutusvaara, an area used for reindeer herding and regarded as spiritually significant.
- In 1989, a state land administrator contracted with a private company to quarry stone on a 10-hectare area on the mountain; the authorization initially ran to 1993.
- In January 1990, municipal authorities granted a permit for extraction of about 5,000 cubic meters of building stone, and the project received state financial support.
- The authors alleged that quarrying and transport would cut through reindeer fencing systems, disrupting grazing and migration, increasing stress on the animals, and harming the quality of slaughtered reindeer.
- By September 1992, operations consisted mainly of limited test quarrying, with a relatively small amount of stone extracted.
- Finland accepted that the authors were protected minority members, but argued the project’s scale, regulation, and mitigation conditions (including quarrying primarily outside the pasturing season) prevented any denial of Sámi cultural rights.
- The authors filed an individual communication under the ICCPR Optional Protocol in June 1992; the Human Rights Committee found the article 27 claim admissible in October 1993 and decided the merits in October 1994.

## Issues

1. Whether reindeer herding is protected “culture” under ICCPR article 27 even when conducted using modern technology.
2. What level of interference from a state-authorized development project “amounts to a denial” of a minority’s right to enjoy its culture under article 27.
3. Whether Finland’s authorization and regulation of the Riutusvaara quarry, in context, violated the authors’ article 27 rights.

## Decision

- The Human Rights Committee found no violation of ICCPR article 27.
- The Committee held that article 27 may protect economic activities that are an essential element of an ethnic community’s culture, including reindeer herding practiced with modern methods.
- The Committee accepted that Riutusvaara’s spiritual significance and environmental effects on herding were relevant considerations under article 27.
- Applying an effects-based threshold, the Committee concluded that the quarrying, as regulated and implemented at the time, did not deny the authors the ability to enjoy their culture, given the limited scale, localized impact, and protective conditions.

## Legal Principles

- ICCPR article 27 can cover land-based economic activities when they are essential to a minority community’s cultural life.
- Use of modern technology does not remove an activity from article 27 protection when the activity remains culturally central.
- States may authorize development, but measures are incompatible with article 27 when their impact amounts to a denial of a minority community’s right to enjoy its culture.
- The article 27 assessment is contextual and fact-specific, including scale, actual implementation, mitigation conditions, and cumulative effects on culturally significant practices and sites.

## Conclusion

The Committee recognized modernized Sámi reindeer herding and culturally significant landscapes as interests protected by ICCPR article 27, but held that Finland’s limited, regulated quarrying project—given its scope and mitigation measures—did not, on the facts before it, amount to a denial of the authors’ right to enjoy their culture.


Länsman v. Fin., Commc’n No. 511/1992, U.N. Doc. CCPR/C/52/D/511/1992 (Hum. Rts. Comm. 1994)