When I headed recently to northern Finland, about 100 miles above the Arctic Circle, the last thing I expected my trip to deal with was diplomacy. I thought I'd see a lot of snow and ice, feel the cold and witness environmental peculiarities as a result of climate change.
But as I was sitting in a room at the University of Lapland's Arctic Center, one of the professors there, an American named Bruce Forbes, mentioned in passing that several countries around the Arctic Ocean are pouring millions of dollars into research to prove that large parts of the Arctic seabed are a "natural prolongation" of their territory.
If they are successful in their claims, they will have the right to the oil, gas and other natural resources there. No one knows for sure what exactly lies under the Arctic Ocean, but estimates put that amount at up to 20 percent of the world's energy supply.
After I came back home, I called the State Department's Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs to find out what the United States is doing to prepare for its claim, which must be submitted to the U.N. Commission on the Limits of Continental Shelf.
The head of the bureau, Assistant Secretary Claudia A. McMurray, told me that the department is spending $5.6 million this year on research, which has already shown that the foot of the continental slope off Alaska is more than 100 miles farther from the U.S. coast than previously thought.
The problem is that the United States doesn't have the legal right to make any claims at this time. You can find out why in my story, U.S. pursues Arctic claim, which ran today.
— Nicholas Kralev, diplomatic correspondent, The Washington Times
Comments (1)
I have couple of comments to this very interesting article. Let me start from the following quote from the article: �The recent ice-melting in the Arctic has made the region's natural riches more accessible, and the race to lay claim to those resources is in full speed. But the politically charged U.S. debate over ratifying the agreement raises questions about the U.S. ability to keep up in the race.� I perceive it as problematic that the media is having a field-day on this �race to resources� story-line. Evidently, the ice meltdown has had an effect on the public discussion, but I see no evidence that it would have influenced the continental shelf claims pursued in the Arctic. Why? The reasons are very straightforward. With the UN Law of the Sea Convention, also called the �Constitution of the Oceans�, the countries of the world were able to make a compromise as to the legal status of the sea bed, an issue that had been controversial before the adoption of the UNCLOS in 1982: the broad continental margin states achieved their goal partly, since they are now able to claim the whole continental margin as part of their continental shelf where they are entitled to exclusively exploit the subsoil resources; yet they needed to make compromises, one of which was that they had to scientifically prove that their continental margin indeed extends beyond the 200 nautical miles. This they need to do within 10 years from becoming parties to UNCLOS (for states that had become parties before UNCLOS entered into force in 1994 this was extended to May 2009) to the UN Commission on the Limits of Continental Shelf. Why do they need to do this within 10 years? Because only when the limits of continental shelf are drawn, it is possible to draw the border between coastal states� continental shelves and the AREA, ocean floor, which is part of the common heritage of humankind and governed by the International Sea-bed Authority. So why it is that states are now making these claims? Simply because the first deadline to make a submission to the CLCS was in 2004. All of this is happening at the moment simply because states are (almost desperately) trying to live up to their UNCLOS obligation to submit scientific info in 10 years. There is nothing that suggests to the contrary. The US does not have to hurry with its submission since it has not yet become party, but when it does, it will also have to submit info to the CLCS within 10 years. It is also good to keep in mind that under customary law of the sea, which is binding on the US as well, states do have a right to their continental shelf (it is a natural prolongation of their land territory into the sea) and thus the US can enact the outer limits of its continental shelf even without any CLCS procedure. The problem with this is that since most of the states are parties to the UNCLOS, the outer limits of US � if drawn without it becoming a party to the UNCLOS and submitting info to the CLCS � would not enjoy the same certain legal status as those states continental shelves, the outer limits which are drawn on the basis of the recommendations from the CLCS. All in all, this article was one of the best I�ve read from this difficult thematic, most journalists not even aware that the states are just following the UNCLOS obligations. Timo Koivurova, research professor, NIEM/Arctic Centre/University of Lapland
Posted by Timo Koivurova | May 15, 2008 1:45 AM