When the mining company Energy Transition Minerals (ETM) announced it would take Greenland to court for a whopping 76 billion Danish kroner (US$11.15 billion) in damages – equivalent to four times the Arctic nation’s GDP – Naaja Nathanielsen seemed to be one of the only people in the entire Kingdom of Denmark who wasn’t surprised by the eye-watering sum.1

As Greenland’s minister for raw materials, she had expected nothing less when in 2023 the company filed a claim with an arbitration tribunal in Copenhagen, the Danish capital, arguing for its legal right to be granted a licence to open a mine in Greenland.