Who Owns the Arctic?

Russia, Canada neighbours? Seabed territorial push could bring borders together

Randy Boswell, PostMedia News, February 14, 2012

Two Canadian legal scholars have published a study showing how the push by northern nations for extended seabed territory in the Arctic Ocean could soon find Canada negotiating a maritime boundary with a new next-door neighbour: Russia.

Most of Canada's borderlands and boundary waters separate this country from the United States, including Alaska in the northwest corner of the continent. Canada also has maritime boundaries with Denmark (between Ellesmere Island and Greenland) and France, which oversees the tiny islands of Saint-Pierre and Miquelon south of Newfoundland.

But the possibility that Canada and Russia might one day share a border has, until now, seemed unimaginable given the vast ocean distances separating the two countries, and the relatively modest 370-kilometre (200-nautical-mile) offshore zone within which nations are permitted to exercise exclusive jurisdiction and resource rights.

But a recently revealed oddity arising from a Beaufort Sea boundary dispute between Canada and the U.S. — along with the advent of a UN treaty allowing countries to claim ownership over extended continental shelves lying beyond the current 200-mile limit — has highlighted how Canada and Russia could be on a cartographic intercept course somewhere north of 80 degrees latitude.

The surprising scenario is laid out in a lengthy article published this month in the academic journal Ocean Development & International Law and co-authored by University of British Columbia geopolitics professor Michael Byers, a leading Canadian expert on Arctic sovereignty issues, and his PhD student, James Baker.

Peaceful competition on Arctic ice

Michael Byers, Toronto Star, 24 August 2011

AMUNDSEN GULF, N.W.T.—Two powerful icebreakers — one Canadian, the other American — have just met up in the Beaufort Sea, setting up the latest play in a circumpolar hockey game.

Together, the CCGS Louis S. St. Laurent and USCGC Healy will map the Alpha Ridge, a 2,000 kilometre-long range of underwater mountains running from the northwest flank of Canada’s Ellesmere Island toward Russia’s Wrangle Island.

Rules for the North Pole

Michael Byers, International Herald Tribune, 18 August 2011

No country will ever “own” the North Pole, which is located roughly 400 miles to the north of any land. The central Arctic Ocean belongs to humanity; its challenges are the responsibility of all nations. Those challenges — of life-threatening accidents, oil spills and over-fishing — are increasing as the sea-ice melts and ships of all kinds gain access.

Russia to submit U.N. Arctic claim next year

Thomas Grove (Reuters), 7 July 2011

MOSCOW - Russia said Wednesday it would formally submit an application to the United Nations next year to redraw the map of the Arctic, giving itself a bigger share.

Koreans Eye Mackenzie Valley Gas

Short on fuels, their LNG tankers are ready to fetch BC gas. Will they spark a latent NWT gas boom, too?

Liquified natural gas carrier: Korea planning icebreaking tankers.

Michael Byers, The Tyee, June 27, 2011

Among the denim-clad crowd at the Inuvik Petroleum Show, two well-dressed Koreans stand out like sore thumbs. Curious, I sit down with them at lunch.

"We're from Kogas," they say. "The Korea Gas Corporation." Why have they come here, to the Northwest Territories?

Expedition could solidify Canada's Arctic claims

Randy Boswell, PostMedia, May 31, 2011

A High Arctic mapping expedition this summer along a mysterious undersea mountain chain near the North Pole will mark the culmination of a 10-year federal research project aimed at adding millions of square kilometres of ocean floor -potentially an area as large as Canada's three Prairie provinces combined -to this country's territorial possessions.

New warning on Arctic sea ice melt

By Richard Black, Environment correspondent, BBC News, April 7, 2011

 

Scientists who predicted a few years ago that Arctic summers could be ice-free by 2013 now say summer sea ice will probably be gone in this decade.

The original prediction, made in 2007, gained Wieslaw Maslowski's team a deal of criticism from some of their peers.

Now they are working with a new computer model - compiled partly in response to those criticisms - that produces a "best guess" date of 2016.

Arctic melt to cost up to $24 trillion by 2050: report

(Reuters: Washington, DC, Feb 5, 2011) - Arctic ice melting could cost global agriculture, real estate and insurance anywhere from $2.4 trillion to $24 trillion by 2050 in damage from rising sea levels, floods and heat waves, according to a report released on Friday.

Arctic treaty will push Canada to upgrade rescue capabilities, experts say

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A view of the Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker Louis S. St-Laurent as it makes its way through the ice in Baffin Bay. An international agreement that divides the North into search-and-rescue regions comes as air and shipping traffic continues to grow in the Arctic. JONATHAN HAYWARD/THE CANADIAN PRESS FILE PHOTO

Bob Weber, The Canadian Press (Toronto Star, January 5, 2010)

The federal government is poised to sign an international treaty that will make Canada legally responsible for search and rescue in its part of the Arctic.

Northern experts say the deal, expected to be signed in May, could pressure Canada into upgrading its capabilities in the region. And, they add, it shows new resolve by the eight nations in the Arctic Council to show the rest of the world that they intend to set the rules for the uppermost reaches of the planet.

“By ratcheting up the capabilities of the Arctic Council, countries like the United States, Russia and Canada are essentially saying, ‘No, we have matters under control. We are making laws for this area. You can relax,’ ” said Michael Byers, an international law professor at the University of British Columbia who has written extensively on the Arctic.

Russian drifting polar station SP-38 opens in Chukchi Sea

Alexander Stelliferovsky, RIA Novosti, October 15, 2010

In the bitterly cold darkness more than a thousand kilometers above the Arctic Circle, a team of Russian scientists on Friday inaugurated a floating research station that will be home to 15 researchers for up to a year.