Arctic Indigenous Communities and Antarctic Icebergs as Subjects of Inter-legality

The development of different specialized legal regimes that often address the same issues has led to a well-known phenomenon offragmentation of international law. This phenomenon often leads to a clash of norms. In this article, authors attempt to use a new theoretical framework of ‘Inter-Legality’ which addresses the situation of competing international regimes. This concept is applied to two case studies: protection of the rights of the Arctic indigenous population and iceberg harvesting in the Antarctic high seas. Through the case studies, the authors will highlight the existence of two situations: the first where the clash of laws leads to a situation where no synergies can be created between the different legal regimes and the second where the clash of laws leads to a new opportunity for the regulation of the subject over which different legal regimes claim competencies. The authors will call the first scenario ‘Positive Inter-Legality’ and the second one ‘Negative Inter-Legality’. The authors find the concept of inter-legality applicable and useful for overcoming some of the challenges to the fragmentation of international law.