Inuit Circumpolar Conference
The logo of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference
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| Abbreviation | ICC |
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| Formation | June 1980 |
| Type | multinational non-governmental organization (NGO) |
| Legal status | active |
| Purpose | promote their rights and interests, and to ensure the development of Inuit culture. |
| Headquarters | ICC Russia, ICC Alaska, ICC Canada, and ICC Greenland |
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Region served
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United States, Canada, Greenland, and Russia. |
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Membership
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150,000 Inuit |
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Official language
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English, French |
| Website | Inuit Circumpolar Council, Canada |
The Inuit Circumpolar Council (ICC) (Greenlandic: Inuit Issittormiut Siunnersuisoqatigiifiat), formerly Inuit Circumpolar Conference, is a multinational non-governmental organization (NGO) and Indigenous Peoples' Organization (IPO) representing the 160,000 Inuit (often referred to as Eskimo) people living in Alaska (United States), Canada, Greenland (Denmark), and Chukotka (Russia). ICC was ECOSOC-accredited and was granted special consultative status (category II) at the UN in 1983.
The Conference, which first met in June 1977 in Barrow, Alaska, initially represented Native Peoples from Canada, Alaska and Greenland. In 1980 the charter and by-laws of ICC were adopted. The Conference agreed to replace the term Eskimo with the term Inuit. This has not however met with widespread acceptance by some groups, most pre-eminently the Yupik (see Background section below). The goals of the Conference are to strengthen ties between Arctic people and to promote human, cultural, political and environmental rights and polities at the international level.
ICC holds a General Assembly every four years. ICC is one of the six Arctic indigenous communities to have the status of Permanent Participant on the Arctic Council.
The Inuit population includes the following groups and regions:
All of these peoples are sometimes collectively referred to be the exonym Eskimo, the use of which is frowned upon by many of the Inuit, especially in eastern Canada. ICC uses the term Inuit to refer to them all, which has its own problems. One of those problems is administrative: an Inuk in the United States could be considered "Native American," "Alaskan Native or "Aboriginal American. The Yupik of both Alaska and Russia generally dislike being called Inuit, which is not a word in the Yupik language nor a word which they use to describe themselves, and prefer Yupik but will tolerate Eskimo.
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