[2] ICC was accredited by the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) and was granted special consultative status (category II) at the United Nations in 1983.

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.

Structurally, the organization is made up of four separate offices in each of the four Inuit homelands, chartered individually under their national rules.

ICC holds a General Assembly every four years, bringing together Inuit from across the northern circumpolar region to discuss issues of international importance to their communities, provide direction for the work of the organization over the next four years, and divide responsibility for issue areas between the national offices.

At that Assembly, ICC also voted to change its name to Inuit Circumpolar Council as there has been perennial confusion over an organizational name that sounds more like a past meeting.