MariaDine
13th July 2010, 23:45
Is it high time for a tough Arctic treaty?
Just checkout this important piece of the puzzle...
27 June 2010
ANCHORAGE, ALASKA - The U.S. air force is preparing for the day this summer when Russian fighters fly into Alaska's air space just as their bombers have done several times since Cold War exercises in the Arctic resumed three years ago. But this time, the Americans won't be scrambling jets out of Elmendorf Air Base to intercept them, as they did in the past.
In what promises to be a milestone in the history of Russian-American relations, the two countries will be co-operating on defence exercises designed to address the possibility of terrorism in the Arctic.
Russia and the United States won't be the only unlikely allies looking out for phantom boats in the Arctic this summer. Over in Resolute in Canada's High Arctic, both the Danes and the Americans, which have been locked in boundary disputes with Canada, will be sending naval vessels into the Northwest Passage to work with the Canadian Navy on similar security-related exercises.
As unlikely as a terrorist attack in the Arctic seems now, it's clear that military thinkers see enough in future climate change, energy, security and environmental scenarios to warrant these kinds of partnerships.
What Arctic governments apparently don't see is the need for a treaty, or a legally binding instrument that would regulate oil and gas development, shipping and fisheries activities that also figure prominently in future scenarios.
In the past two years, the U.S., Russia, Denmark, Norway and Canada have all distanced themselves from embracing the concept. And so far, the Arctic Council, an intergovernmental forum created in 1996 to address a number of issues that indigenous people and the eight Arctic states face, has shown no appetite for such a "hard-law" approach for managing the circumpolar world.
Most everyone seems to be content with the so-called "soft-law" system of regional co-operation and management under existing regulations, such as the Law of the Sea Convention, the International Maritime Organization, and the United Nations Fish Stocks Agreement.
The reluctance comes, in part, from fears that legally binding instruments might compromise an Arctic country's sovereignty over the region. There is also a legitimate concern that negotiating such a complex treaty in this economically important and environmentally sensitive part of the world cannot realistically happen fast enough.
This reluctance, however, may soon change.
With numerous nations and oil companies preparing for the day when widespread oil exploration will be possible in the Arctic Ocean, BP's oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has crystallized the fears of politicians, scientists, conservationists and indigenous people in the Far North who believe that sovereignty is meaningless if the environmental and cultural integrity of the Arctic is seriously compromised.
A similar-sized offshore spill would likely have even more profound consequences in the Arctic, not only because polar bears, beluga whales, narwhal and walrus would be especially vulnerable, locked in ice as they often are, but because cleanup efforts would be hamstrung for a good part of the year by powerful currents, sea ice and the lack of the well-developed spill-response infrastructure that exists along the Gulf of Mexico.
Even if there were an Arctic sea port, new naval patrol boats, Coast Guard icebreakers and more resources to deal with a disaster in the Arctic, as the Canadian government has promised but so far not delivered, it's questionable whether they would make much of a difference.
"There does not exist today technology that can recover oil from ice," Ron Bowden of Aqua-Guard Spill Response, a company based in North Vancouver, told Canadian MPs matter-of-factly earlier this month.
Given the risks that have been highlighted by the Gulf spill, several experts are now wondering whether the entire Arctic should be protected by a treaty or a framework of legally binding instruments. Not only would this ensure that strict regulations are in place right across the circumpolar Arctic, it would ensure that a country such as Greenland, which recently dispatched two drilling ships into Davis Strait, would not imperil the sovereignty and environmental interests of its neighbours.
"Bear in mind that since this is a very complex governance system we are talking about, it will not be easy to come up with an overreaching legal regime for the whole region," says Timo Koivurova, research professor and director of the Northern Institute for Environmental and Minority Law at the Arctic Centre, University of Lapland in Rovaniemi, Finland.
"This is a region that is undergoing dramatic change. We know that economic activities are going to enter the region. There is no evidence to suggest that status quo, or the soft-law approach that we have now, will be effective in regulating these activities in the future. What is required is the establishment of regional institutions with legal powers to regulate."
---
As ambitious and all encompassing as a treaty such as this would be, it is not without precedent.
Fifty-three years ago, scientists from 67 nations joined forces in an attempt to co-ordinate worldwide measurements of the Earth, the oceans, the atmosphere and the sun just as polar scientists from dozens of countries recently did during the International Polar Year. Coming at a time when geopolitical tensions were on the rise, the accomplishments of 1957-58 were extraordinary. Not only did the studies result in the charting of ocean depths and currents and a systematic understanding of the Earth's magnetic field, they inspired the idea of an overarching treaty for governing the continent.
Since the signing of the Antarctic treaty in Washington D.C., 47 countries representing more than about 80 per cent of the world's population have added their names to this complex framework of agreements. In addition to setting aside Antarctica as a scientific preserve, the treaty bans military activities and prohibits resource exploitation on the continent. Many believe it is the main reason why Antarctica is the only continent that has not been the site of a war, a nuclear explosion or a man-made environmental disaster.
Read more: http://www.edmontonjournal.com/news/Time+tough+Arctic+treaty/3207557/story.html#ixzz0tbo7Rd1K
Any thoughts ???
Namaste :)
Just checkout this important piece of the puzzle...
27 June 2010
ANCHORAGE, ALASKA - The U.S. air force is preparing for the day this summer when Russian fighters fly into Alaska's air space just as their bombers have done several times since Cold War exercises in the Arctic resumed three years ago. But this time, the Americans won't be scrambling jets out of Elmendorf Air Base to intercept them, as they did in the past.
In what promises to be a milestone in the history of Russian-American relations, the two countries will be co-operating on defence exercises designed to address the possibility of terrorism in the Arctic.
Russia and the United States won't be the only unlikely allies looking out for phantom boats in the Arctic this summer. Over in Resolute in Canada's High Arctic, both the Danes and the Americans, which have been locked in boundary disputes with Canada, will be sending naval vessels into the Northwest Passage to work with the Canadian Navy on similar security-related exercises.
As unlikely as a terrorist attack in the Arctic seems now, it's clear that military thinkers see enough in future climate change, energy, security and environmental scenarios to warrant these kinds of partnerships.
What Arctic governments apparently don't see is the need for a treaty, or a legally binding instrument that would regulate oil and gas development, shipping and fisheries activities that also figure prominently in future scenarios.
In the past two years, the U.S., Russia, Denmark, Norway and Canada have all distanced themselves from embracing the concept. And so far, the Arctic Council, an intergovernmental forum created in 1996 to address a number of issues that indigenous people and the eight Arctic states face, has shown no appetite for such a "hard-law" approach for managing the circumpolar world.
Most everyone seems to be content with the so-called "soft-law" system of regional co-operation and management under existing regulations, such as the Law of the Sea Convention, the International Maritime Organization, and the United Nations Fish Stocks Agreement.
The reluctance comes, in part, from fears that legally binding instruments might compromise an Arctic country's sovereignty over the region. There is also a legitimate concern that negotiating such a complex treaty in this economically important and environmentally sensitive part of the world cannot realistically happen fast enough.
This reluctance, however, may soon change.
With numerous nations and oil companies preparing for the day when widespread oil exploration will be possible in the Arctic Ocean, BP's oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has crystallized the fears of politicians, scientists, conservationists and indigenous people in the Far North who believe that sovereignty is meaningless if the environmental and cultural integrity of the Arctic is seriously compromised.
A similar-sized offshore spill would likely have even more profound consequences in the Arctic, not only because polar bears, beluga whales, narwhal and walrus would be especially vulnerable, locked in ice as they often are, but because cleanup efforts would be hamstrung for a good part of the year by powerful currents, sea ice and the lack of the well-developed spill-response infrastructure that exists along the Gulf of Mexico.
Even if there were an Arctic sea port, new naval patrol boats, Coast Guard icebreakers and more resources to deal with a disaster in the Arctic, as the Canadian government has promised but so far not delivered, it's questionable whether they would make much of a difference.
"There does not exist today technology that can recover oil from ice," Ron Bowden of Aqua-Guard Spill Response, a company based in North Vancouver, told Canadian MPs matter-of-factly earlier this month.
Given the risks that have been highlighted by the Gulf spill, several experts are now wondering whether the entire Arctic should be protected by a treaty or a framework of legally binding instruments. Not only would this ensure that strict regulations are in place right across the circumpolar Arctic, it would ensure that a country such as Greenland, which recently dispatched two drilling ships into Davis Strait, would not imperil the sovereignty and environmental interests of its neighbours.
"Bear in mind that since this is a very complex governance system we are talking about, it will not be easy to come up with an overreaching legal regime for the whole region," says Timo Koivurova, research professor and director of the Northern Institute for Environmental and Minority Law at the Arctic Centre, University of Lapland in Rovaniemi, Finland.
"This is a region that is undergoing dramatic change. We know that economic activities are going to enter the region. There is no evidence to suggest that status quo, or the soft-law approach that we have now, will be effective in regulating these activities in the future. What is required is the establishment of regional institutions with legal powers to regulate."
---
As ambitious and all encompassing as a treaty such as this would be, it is not without precedent.
Fifty-three years ago, scientists from 67 nations joined forces in an attempt to co-ordinate worldwide measurements of the Earth, the oceans, the atmosphere and the sun just as polar scientists from dozens of countries recently did during the International Polar Year. Coming at a time when geopolitical tensions were on the rise, the accomplishments of 1957-58 were extraordinary. Not only did the studies result in the charting of ocean depths and currents and a systematic understanding of the Earth's magnetic field, they inspired the idea of an overarching treaty for governing the continent.
Since the signing of the Antarctic treaty in Washington D.C., 47 countries representing more than about 80 per cent of the world's population have added their names to this complex framework of agreements. In addition to setting aside Antarctica as a scientific preserve, the treaty bans military activities and prohibits resource exploitation on the continent. Many believe it is the main reason why Antarctica is the only continent that has not been the site of a war, a nuclear explosion or a man-made environmental disaster.
Read more: http://www.edmontonjournal.com/news/Time+tough+Arctic+treaty/3207557/story.html#ixzz0tbo7Rd1K
Any thoughts ???
Namaste :)