Governing property rights and extractivism in the Nordics under the European Union's Critical Raw Materials Act

• Recent Supreme Court rulings illustrate that property rights are an important driver behind environmental conflicts. The Girjas, Vetsijoki, and Karasjok cases reveal a legally fragmented landscape regarding Sámi property rights in the Nordic countries. While Sámi communities are sometimes recognized as proprietors in Sweden, they remain merely authorized users in Norway and Finland. The courts employ conflicting strategies on burden of proof and interpretation of international treaties. This inconsistency, combined with historical Sámi land dispossession since the 16th century, suggests that formal legal equality without recognition of past injustices may reinforce rather than resolve conflicts. • As the geopolitical race for critical materials intensifies, CRMA implementation fundamentally depends on acknowledging property rights in order to maintain democratic legitimacy. Research indicates that the nine strategic projects in Sweden and Finland that were approved in the first round of CRMA will likely face environmental and social risks that vary by project type. Recycling projects normally face the lowest risks, followed by extraction, processing, and lastly integrated projects. • The legitimacy of CRMA also depends on whether national strategies appear as EU-imposed technocratic measures. Strategies too closely mirroring EU objectives without adequate local consultations risk creating perceived legitimacy gaps. • Differences in timing and EU membership impact how national mineral strategies align with CRMA. Finland appears most closely aligned with EU priorities, followed by Norway albeit with reservations regarding seabed mining, and lastly Sweden, whose strategy predates the EU Green Deal. • Differentiated risk assessment frameworks should recognize varying conflict potential across project types. Harmonized approaches to Indigenous property rights recognition across Nordic jurisdictions are needed, alongside long-term governance models extending accountability beyond individual project lifecycles. The Nordic countries significant deposits of raw materials are becoming increasingly attractive to extract fueled by growing global demand, geopolitical pressures and increasing market volatility. Yet mining faces a growing number of legal disputes driven by social, economic and environmental concerns. Property-rights theory offers a framework for understanding how hierarchies of rightsholders contributes to environmental conflicts. By applying a macro-level (EU policy), meso‑level (national mining strategies), and micro-level (conflicts involving Indigenous rights) perspective, this paper analyses how high-level objectives are translated into national strategies and their potential impacts on local actors. The paper contributes to existing research by connecting literature on the evolution of property rights, Extractivism and resistance to mining in Sweden, Norway and Finland. It shows that supreme court rulings regarding Girjas (2020), Vetsijoki river (2022) and Karasjok (2024) points to a fragmented legal landscape, where the Sámi can sometimes be considered as proprietors in Sweden, but only authorized users in Norway and Finland. This indicates that the slow degradation of second order property rights which began in the 18th century as part of state building processes, create vulnerabilities which indigenous communities currently are trying to mitigate through court action. The results are important to avoid expansion of legal disputes tied to the Critical Raw Materials Act and national mining policies.