CERD/C/102/D/54/2013 the possibility of a judicial review by the Supreme Administrative Court satisfies the petitioners’ right to appeal the granting of the concessions. Petitioners’ comments on the State party’s observations 3.1 In a submission dated 31 January 2018, the petitioners allege that the State party violated article 5 (d) (v) of the Convention by granting three mining concessions on their traditional territory without obtaining the consent of the reindeer herding community and without even considering whether taking the land amounted to a violation of the community’s property rights. 3.2 The petitioners recall that international human rights law provides that indigenous peoples’ traditional use of land in accordance with their own cultural practices establishes property rights. In particular, the petitioners recall the Committee’s general recommendation No. 23 (1997) and article 26 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples concerning indigenous property rights over territories traditionally used. According to the petitioners, the State party’s domestic jurisprudence has also acknowledged that Sami reindeer herding communities’ traditional use of land has established property rights, and not only rights of usufruct,5 even though Swedish mining legislation reflects an ignorance of the property rights of Sami reindeer herding communities in respect of their traditional territories. The petitioners claim that their rights have been established through traditional use as they have migrated with their reindeer along the same routes used by their ancestors since time immemorial, in their traditional territory, which covers approximately 10,000 km2 of spring, summer, autumn and winter pasture areas. Their property right is not based on the Reindeer Husbandry Act but on the customary use of the land. Indeed, indigenous peoples’ rights to traditional territories exist independently of domestic legislation, and the fact that the national legislation does not award them formal title is therefore irrelevant, according to international human rights law. A cardinal aspect of structural discrimination directed against indigenous peoples is precisely the lack of official recognition of rights over land, and this is why human rights protection organs have not held official recognition of title to be a prerequisite for the recognition of indigenous peoples’ property rights because, in an indigenous context, the right to property does not necessarily have to be expressed in the form of a State-recognized title, but can also present itself in other forms established through customary use. Thus, the term “right to property” is considered as also encompassing property in the context of indigenous peoples whose own traditions and customary laws may include a totally different system of property rights from that laid down in State law. Such an understanding of the right is thus in line with article 5 (d) (v) of the Convention, irrespective of the fact that the wording of the provision speaks only of ownership rights. In international law in general and in the Committee’s jurisprudence, the understanding of the right to property has clearly evolved when applied in an indigenous context. 3.3 The Vapsten indigenous Sami reindeer herding community pursues traditional Sami reindeer herding in northern Sweden, in an area stretching from mountainous terrain by the Norwegian border in the west to forested landscapes approaching the Baltic Sea in the east. This area running from west to east, which is their traditional land, is a prerequisite for Sami reindeer herding, which requires access to different pasture areas during different seasons over a yearly cycle. One vital piece of their yearly reindeer herding cycle puzzle is the area in the centre, Rönnbäcken isthmus, where mining concessions were granted in violation of their right to property as enshrined in article 5 (d) (v) of the Convention. Thus, it is undisputed that the mines constitute an infringement of the community’s property right since, according to the State party’s own words, it is not possible to practise both reindeer husbandry and mine extraction. 3.4 In this regard, the removal of the area from the community without consultation and without its free, prior and informed consent, as already established by the Committee in its decision of admissibility of 1 May 2017, is a limitation on the community’s property rights, in contradiction with the Convention. 5 6 The petitioners refer to the Supreme Court’s rulings in the Taxed Lapp Mountain and Nordmaling cases.