Who goVerns the arctIc?
Rus sia, Canada, the United States, Denmark,
Norway, Finland, Iceland, and Sweden joined
together in the Arctic Council in 1996. With secu-
rity and military issues specifically excluded from
its mandate, the organ ization hoped to provide
management of functional issues that affect all
members. Permanent participants also include
representatives of indigenous peoples, including
the Saami Council, the Aleut International
Association, and the Inuit Circumpolar Council,
among others. Consistent with functionalist
thinking, working groups agree on monitoring
and assessment, flora and fauna, emergency pre-
paredness, environmental protection, and sus-
tainable development. Agreements have been
reached on search- and- rescue operations and
provisions for containment and cleanup of oil
spills. And, in 2015, an agreement was signed
regulating commercial fishing in international
waters that includes the North Pole.
While a recent headline trumpeted the fact
that the “U.S. Takes Helm of Arctic Council,
Aims to Focus on Climate Change,” politics has
intervened.a Rus sia has expressed intense inter-
est in the region, declaring in its 2014 rewritten
military doctrine that the Arctic is Rus sia’s top
national security priority. Recent conflicts in
Crimea and Ukraine have complicated negotia-
tions on other Arctic issues, and boundary con-
flicts have become more salient as huge amounts
of natu ral gas and petroleum resources become
recoverable and eco nom ically profitable. Thus,
the United States contests Rus sia’s claims that part
of the Northern Sea Route north of Siberia is
within internal Rus sian waters. Both Denmark and
Canada claim an uninhabited island in the Nares
Strait. And several states claim part of the sea-
bed under lying a mountain range under the Arc-
tic Ocean. Hence, given the potential resources
and claims at stake, even observer member
states like India, South Korea, and China are
angling for a more formal role in the Arctic
Council. When the United States assumed the
chair of the council, its top priority was to
address issues connected with climate change
and global warming, but those issues are inter-
dependent with, and connected to, all the other
issues. The council has the complicated task of
sorting them out.
Before the formation of the Arctic Council, no
legal regime governed the Arctic. There was legal
pre ce dent in Antarctica. In 1961, the signatories to
the Antarctic Treaty agreed that the continent
should be used for peaceful purposes only—it
prohibits bases, fortifications, military maneuvers,
or testing of weapons. Scientific research may be
pursued even by military authorities, but inspec-
tions are conducted to verify the peaceful nature
of such activities. Preservation and conservation
of living resources is encouraged. Yet absent
from the treaty was any basis for “asserting,
supporting or denying a claim to territorial sov-
ereignty in Antarctica or create any rights of
sovereignty.” Since the Arctic, at the time, was
only a piece of ice, no comparable legal agree-
ment was deemed necessary.
The 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea
Law (UNCLOS) established some key rules that
apply to states in proximity to this piece of ice. Ter-
ritorial sea bound aries extend 12 miles offshore,
freedom of navigation is assured, an exclusive
economic zone extends up to 200 miles offshore,
and continental shelf rights may be extended
in some circumstances to 350 miles offshore.
Thus, under UNCLOS, each coastal Arctic state is
granted control over living and nonliving natu ral230 CHAPTER SEvEN ■ IGOs, InternAtIOnAl lAW, And nGOsBehind The headlines