IBA delegation visits Greenland ahead of Annual Conference in Copenhagen
A high-level delegation from the International Bar Association (IBA) visited Greenland ahead of Sunday's opening of the 2026 IBA Annual Conference in Copenhagen on 4 October to meet with Greenlandic government officials and discuss the rule of law, international law and Greenland’s evolving role in the international legal order, in a rapidly changing geopolitical environment.
The IBA delegation comprised Claudio Visco, IBA President; Jaime Carey, Immediate Past-President of the IBA; Jörg Menzer, IBA Vice-President; Dr Mark Ellis, IBA Executive Director; and Tim Hughes, IBA Deputy Executive Director.
During the visit the delegation met with Greenland’s Foreign and Security Policy Committee, as well as government representatives including Inuuteq Holm Olsen, Head of Department at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Research in Nuuk and Stefan Krehbiel, Legal Director of Greenland’s Government Administration (Naalakkersuisut). In addition, Mr Visco addressed participants at the International Justice event held in Greenland’s capital, Nuuk, which was followed later with a dinner hosted by the Greenland Law Society.
The delegation’s visit to Greenland came at a significant moment for the autonomous self-governing territory within the Kingdom of Denmark and for its international relationships in the context of the recent signing of the US-Denmark-Greenland-agreement.
Mr Visco said: ‘Our meeting in Greenland reflected the IBA’s commitment to listening, engaging and supporting the legal profession and institutions in addressing questions that have significance well beyond the region. Greenland is at the centre of some of the most consequential discussions taking place in the Arctic and internationally. When circumstances are changing so briskly and difficult questions are being tested, that is when close attention must be paid to the rule of law.’
The connection between the Greenland visit and the IBA Annual Conference in Copenhagen is particularly timely. The IBA’s Annual Conference is bringing together the international legal community at a moment when questions of territorial sovereignty, international security, human rights, democratic institutions and the integrity of the rules governing relations between states are receiving renewed global attention.
The Conference opened on Sunday 4 October at 17:00, with Lars Løkke Rasmussen, Denmark’s Minister for Foreign Affairs, as the special guest speaker. Minister Rasmussen was a negotiator of the US-Denmark-Greenland-agreement making his participation particularly relevant to the wider context of the IBA’s engagement with Greenland. As Denmark’s Foreign Minister, it was apt that Minister Rasmussen addressed an international audience of legal professionals attending an event with the rule of law and international cooperation at its core.
The conference programme also features a dedicated session on ‘Greenland’s role in the international legal order: perspectives from the Kingdom of Denmark’, including a keynote address by Vivian Motzfeldt, Member of Inatsisartut and former Minister for Foreign Affairs, Business and Trade of Greenland. The session will examine Greenland’s evolving place within international law and international relations, including the legal and political developments shaping its engagement with international partners.
At the Opening Ceremony, Claudio Visco delivered the IBA President’s address, followed by a keynote address from Prince Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, President of the International Peace Institute and former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.
The IBA Annual Conference is the organisation’s largest annual gathering and, for the first time, is being held in Copenhagen. The event's 6,000 registered attendees together represent legal practices, corporations, governments and regulators from more than 130 countries.
The IBA’s engagement in Greenland and the subsequent gathering in Copenhagen therefore provide two connected opportunities for the international legal community to consider how law, institutions and the rule of law can provide stability and a framework for dialogue at a time of significant geopolitical change.
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The International Bar Association (IBA), the global voice of the legal profession, is the foremost organisation for international legal practitioners, bar associations and law societies. Established in 1947, shortly after the creation of the United Nations, with the aim of protecting and promoting the rule of law globally, it was born out of the conviction that an organisation made up of the world's bar associations could contribute to global stability and peace through the administration of justice.
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