Russia and Competition for Remaking Sub-Polar Spaces

2011 ◽  
pp. 16-29
Author(s):  
A. Fenenko
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Arctic Ocean ◽  
Management System ◽  
Legal Status ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Polar Spaces ◽  
The Arctic Ocean ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Antarctic

The article analyzes the problem of revising the interstate borders in the Arctic and the Antarctic legal status. These issues have repeatedly arisen in the international relations. However, the fight for control of circumpolar territories used to be episodic and conducted mainly by diplomatic means. Nowadays, the Arctic powers began to dispute the revision of the boundaries of the Arctic sectors and the distribution of the “oceanic co-management” system on the Arctic Ocean. The debates are conducted concerning the boundaries of the Southern Ocean’s sectors, on the status of the territories adjacent to the Antarctic and on a return to the drafts of sectoral division of Antarctic. These trends increase the risk of interstate confrontation in circumpolar areas. For Russia a possible redistribution of polar spaces does not mean anything positive.

An Analysis on the Change of Ship Speed According to Ice Load Signal in Continuous Icebreaking and Ramming

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Se-Jin Ahn ◽  
Woo-Seong An ◽  
Tak-Kee Lee ◽  
Kyungsik Choi
Keyword(s):  
Sea Ice ◽  
Arctic Ocean ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Time Duration ◽  
Amundsen Sea ◽  
Ice Load ◽  
Research Activities ◽  
The Arctic Ocean ◽  
The Antarctic ◽  
Ship Speed

Recently, the research activities by domestic and overseas researchers using the Korean ice-breaking research vessel, ARAON have been actively conducted. The ARAON regularly operates for research activities in the Antarctic and the Arctic Ocean every year. She conducts many scientific and engineering tasks including ice load measurement, investigation of the properties of material strength for sea ice, and icebreaking performance test during her voyages. Such tests provide important data for studying icebreaker. Ice-breaking mode is determined by conditions of sea ice and ice field, and it is divided into ramming and continuous icebreaking. When the icebreaker meets thick ice or icebergs, the ramming is conducted. At that time, the ship speed is generally slower than that of the continuous icebreaking. The ARAON conducted icebreaking performance tests at the Amundsen Sea in Antarctica in 2012. Many strain data were measured in the ramming and the continuous icebreaking. This study was based on the strain gauge signals measured by the ARAON during the research voyage in 2012 in the Antarctic and 2010 in the Arctic. The signals measured from repetitive ramming under the heavy ice condition in 2012 in the Antarctic Ocean were classified into the five profiles. And the classified ice load signals were analyzed with a focus on raising time, half-decaying time and total time duration. Also, the signals measured from continuous icebreaking in 2010 in the Arctic Ocean were analyzed in the same way as the ramming data. Finally, the time histories of ice load signals were summarized from the viewpoint of speed change at the time of ice load, and two data sets were compared.

scholarly journals Consultative meetings of non-Arctic states on the status of the Arctic

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 296-318
Author(s):  
Alexander N. Vylegzhanin ◽  
◽  
Elena V. Kienko ◽  
Keyword(s):  
South Korea ◽  
Arctic Ocean ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Legal Regime ◽  
Arctic Council ◽  
The Arctic Ocean ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Arctic Policy ◽  
New Instruments

The article, in the context of the contemporary status of the Arctic, examines the legal and political documents adopted by China, Japan and South Korea in regard to their arctic policy, including those agreed upon by these three States. The alarming reaction to such documents in the Arctic coastal states, firstly, in the USA and Canada, is also considered in the article. Relevant western scholars’ arguments are scrutinized, such as the increase of “China’s military power”; China’s “insatiable appetite” for access to natural resources in the Arctic; the argument that “China seeks to dominate” the Arctic and the situation when “the Arctic Council is split”; the notion that China makes other non-Arctic States create separate legal documents concerning the regime of the Arctic Ocean. The article concludes that the western interpretation of such documents is alarming only in relation to China. The research shows that up till now there are no grounds for such estimations of China’s negative role. However, statements by Chinese officials as cited in the article and some provisions stipulated in “China’s Arctic policy” contradict the common will of the Arctic coastal states in regard to the legal regime of the Arctic Ocean as reflected in the Ilulissat Declaration of 2008. In such a dynamic legal environment, new instruments of collaboration are in demand, which might involve China and other non-Arctic states in maintaining the established legal regime of the Arctic. Thus, the new instruments would deter the creation (with unpredictable consequences) by China, Japan and South Korea of new trilateral acts relating to the status of the Arctic.

Fractal Economy of Arctic

2013 ◽  
pp. 41-47
Author(s):  
M. Slipenchuk
Keyword(s):  
Arctic Ocean ◽  
International Cooperation ◽  
Arctic Region ◽  
Environmental Safety ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
International Agreement ◽  
Northwest Passage ◽  
Northern Sea Route ◽  
The Arctic Ocean ◽  
The Status

In recent decades Arctic attracts the attention of a growing number of states. For effective international cooperation it is necessary to undertake several important steps, including legal work and adoption of documents regulating the statuses and activities of state in Arctic region. It is also needed to undertake a delimitation of sea spaces in the Arctic Ocean, to determine the measures for providing environmental safety in the regions, to reach international agreement on the status of the Northern Sea Route and Northwest Passage, to establish an innovation hub clusters and several others.

32 Polar Oceans and Law of the Sea

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Scott Karen N ◽  
VanderZwaag David L
Keyword(s):  
Southern Ocean ◽  
Arctic Ocean ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Law Of The Sea ◽  
Marine Resources ◽  
General Law ◽  
Ocean Governance ◽  
The Arctic Ocean ◽  
Future Challenges ◽  
The Antarctic

This chapter assesses the implementation of the law of the sea in the Arctic Ocean and Southern Ocean, focusing on the issues of disputed sovereignty, environmental vulnerabilities, and access to marine resources. It highlights how the two regions are ‘poles together’, sharing some key governance similarities, such as being subject to general law of the sea provisions applicable to maritime safety and environmental protection. It describes how the regions are ‘poles apart’ by examining the differing law of the sea contexts and divergent regional approaches and challenges to ocean governance in the Arctic and Antarctic, respectively. It identifies future challenges for both regions focusing on institutional developments in the Arctic and the development of new spatially-focused conservation tools in the Antarctic.

PROTECTION AND PRESERVATION OF THE ARCTIC MARINE ENVIRONMENT

2015 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 159-189
Author(s):  
Claudia Cinelli
Keyword(s):  
Arctic Ocean ◽  
International Law ◽  
Marine Environment ◽  
Legal Status ◽  
Ad Hoc ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
General Interest ◽  
The Arctic Ocean ◽  
Common Interests ◽  
Marine Areas

Unique geographical and physical specificities characterize the Arctic as an extreme and fragile marine environment. Arctic specificities differ from those of any other environment in relation to which most general principles of international law have developed. International law is usually related to the regulation of the physical environment including the distinct issues of soil, water and the atmosphere rather than a combination of these components, as is the case in the ice-covered marine areas such as those composing most of the Arctic Ocean. From both historical and contemporary perspectives, the ‘Arctic question’ has typically been: does the presence of ice change the legal status of the Arctic Ocean? The answer is decidedly no. The so-called Arctic exception, relating to Article 234 UNCLOS, is clearly the exception that proves the rule. This study focuses on how both the sovereignty-based approach and the general interest approach each address the dynamic evolution of Arctic marine environmental challenges in line with UNCLOS, the “Constitution for the Oceans”. This, however, does not preclude the special conditions of the Arctic environment being factored in when Arctic and non-Arctic entities seek feasible ad hoc solutions for cooperation on common interests and concerns.

Response/feedback of the Arctic Ocean in the Northern Hemisphere climate system: the sea-level joker

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claude Hillaire-Marcel ◽  
Anne de Vernal ◽  
Yanguang Liu
Keyword(s):  
Sea Ice ◽  
Arctic Ocean ◽  
Northern Hemisphere ◽  
North Atlantic ◽  
Climate System ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Bering Strait ◽  
The North ◽  
The Arctic Ocean ◽  
The Status

<p>The Arctic Ocean is a major player in the climate system of the Northern Hemisphere due to its role vs albedo, atmospheric pressure regimes, and thermohaline circulation. It shows large amplitude variability from millennial, to decadal and seasonal time scales. At millennial time scales, two drastically distinct regimes prevail primarily in relation with ocean volume and sea level (SL) changes: A modern like system, with a high SL when the Arctic Ocean shelves are submerged and Bering Strait is opened vs a glacial one, with a low SL, when shelves are emerged and partly glaciated and Bering Strait is closed. In the modern system, large submerged shelves result in high productivity, high sea-ice production rates and sea ice-rafting deposition in the Central Arctic. Moreover, a fully open Bering Strait, with SL at the present elevation, contributes about 40% of the freshwater budget of the Arctic Ocean (Woodgate & Aagaard, 2005, doi:10.1029/2004GL021747), and supports Si fluxes of about 20 kmol.s<sup>-1</sup> towards the Western Arctic (Torres-Valdés et al., 2013, doi:10.1002/jgrc.20063), thus impacting primary productivity. Under low SL conditions, the Arctic Ocean is linked exclusively to the North Atlantic, through practically a single gateway, that of Fram Strait. Sedimentation in the Central Arctic is then dominated ice-rafting deposition from icebergs, thus controlled by streaming and calving processes along surrounding ice sheets. Due to its shallowness (< 50 m), the Bering Strait gateway becomes effective at a very late stage of glacial to interglacial transitions but closes early during reverse climate trends. Sedimentary records from shelves North of Strait may provide information on the status of the gateway, so far, for the present interglacial. Clay minerals in cores from the northern Alaskan shelf (Ortiz et al., 2009, doi:10.1016/j.gloplacha.2009.03.020) and micropaleontological tracers from the Chukchi Sea southern shelf (present study) can be used to document the status of the gateway. Here, North Pacific microfossils transported by currents through the gateway demonstrate its full effectiveness at ca 6 ka BP, well after the insolation maximum of the early Holocene but when SL had reached its maximum postglacial elevation, with significant impacts on Arctic Ocean salinity, sea-ice cover and productivity.. This out-of-phase behavior of the Arctic Ocean may have impacted the North Atlantic and Northern Hemisphere climate system, as the openings and closings of Bering Strait constitute critical tipping points on this system, off out of phase with other parameters controlling more globally the climate of the Northern Hemisphere.</p>

Invoking Responsibility For Environmental Injury In The Arctic Ocean

2014 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rachael Lorna Johnstone
Keyword(s):  
Arctic Ocean ◽  
International Law ◽  
Marine Environment ◽  
Industrial Development ◽  
Customary Law ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
The Arctic Ocean ◽  
The Status ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
Simple Basis

As the Arctic Ocean opens up to industrial development, the duties of States to protect the North’s vulnerable ecosystems become increasingly important. However, in the event that a State governing hydrocarbon operations in the Arctic Ocean does not exercise due diligence, it is far from clear which States, if any, can invoke responsibility and seek appropriate remedies. In the 2001 Articles on State Responsibility, the International Law Commission entrenched a dichotomy between injured States and other States: a State cannot be considered to have a relevant legal interest on the simple basis that another State has violated a norm to which both are party. States which are not directly affected by a violation can only invoke responsibility for limited categories of norms: obligations erga omnes and obligations erga omnes partes. Under the Convention on the Law of the Sea as well as in light of customary law, States have obligations to protect all of the marine environment, not just those maritime zones under the jurisdiction of other States. This includes a duty to protect the environment of the State’s own EEZ as well as the EEZ of other States and the High Seas. However, hydrocarbon developments in the Arctic Ocean can potentially violate these norms without creating an injured State. In the absence of an injured States, the question arises as to who might invoke responsibility for such wrongful conduct. In other words, are the norms at stake erga omnes or erga omnes partes? This paper will focus on this gap in the knowledge by setting out the criteria for a norm to have the status erga omnes or erga omnes partes and will argue that recent developments in international law indicate that norms to protect the marine environment have this character.

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