Besides, the climate on out planet is perceptibly warming, thus making more accessible those regions of the world where previously it was impossible to carry out any economic activity. In this context, experts and politicians of many countries turn their attention to "the reign of the white silence" – the Arctic.
The inexorable thawing of the Arctic glaciers plus the current search for new energy reserves, when producing oil fields have been running dry, opens up new bright prospects for developing the Arctic region. Small wonder as, according to US geologists, the Arctic holds a fourth of the world energy resources, with its deposits waiting to be developed.
Recently a number of prominent scientists from various countries advanced a supposition that the relict Arctic glaciers may completely thaw up before the end of the XXI century. The possible, in the foreseeable future, disappearance of ice in previously inaccessible (due to the extremely low temperatures and the ice shield) locations may lead to the opening of new shipping lanes and territories for developing the natural resources. The Arctic Ocean may become a busy thoroughfare between Europe, Asia and America.
The global warming also changes the global importance of the Arctic. Foremost during the "cold war" were considerations of security associated with the active use of the Arctic by Soviet and US atomic submarines, as well as with the passage over it of the shortest trajectories for ballistic missile flights and strategic bomber routes. Today it is mostly prospecting for and development of new oil and gas deposits, transportation links, fishing areas, etc. that are becoming of primary concern.
Some experts view the recent incidents between Russia and Norway involving fishing rights in the neighborhood of the Spitsbergen Islands as precursors of the imminent scramble over the Arctic region. Today its direct participants are the US, Russia, Canada, Norway and Denmark. But it is not to be ruled out that in future "the Great Battle for the Arctic" may also draw in other countries, particularly Great Britain, Iceland, Ireland, Japan, South Korea and even China.
UN experts dealing with problems of delimitating the Arctic shelf point out that the Arctic is the only place where the ocean (the Arctic Ocean) is completely rimmed by several countries and territories under their control. In this context, the problem is fraught with serious clashes of national interests. In the event of ordinary coastal states, territorial disputes are reduced to the demarcation of offshore boundaries and defining the external limit of the territorial waters. In the event of the Arctic the situation is different.
One of the moot points is the North Pole proper. Article 76 of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea states that the zone of exclusive interests of any coastal state is limited to 200 nautical miles. Furthermore, seabed rights are limited to 150 miles. When making calculations, the extent of the continental shelf is taken into account. According to UN laws, any state is entitled to the economic use of the territory within 300 kilometers of its continental shelf.
However, at present the shelf extending up to the North Pole does not belong officially to anyone. Nominally this zone is under control of the International Seabed Authority, but actually almost all countries having an outlet to the Arctic Ocean lay claim to the shelf in the North Pole regions. Particularly active in this respect is little Denmark. It declared its rights to this territory, as the Pole is linked to Greenland by submarine Lomonosov Ridge, and Greenland itself is a semi-autonomous territory of the state of Denmark. Such claims of the Danish party are opposed by Canada, Russia and the US who also lay claim to Arctic territories.
A rather delicate and old-standing problem is the so-called "gray zone" in the Barents Sea, contested by Russia and Norway. In the 1930s the then USSR government set the boundary of the Soviet Polar possessions from Murmansk to the North Pole. Norway did not agree with that, and the dispute about the control of the "gray zone" is still going on. Lately, in addition to the fishing rights frictions, the problem has been complicated by the discovery of vast natural gas deposits on the Barents Sea shelf.
Equally serious is the problem of the Bering Sea. In 1990, under Russian president M. Gorbachev, the USSR and the USA signed an agreement on the delimitation of the maritime territories in the Bering Sea. However, after the collapse of the USSR, the Russian State Duma refused to ratify that document. Moscow believes that under the agreement Russia stands to lose 50,000 square kilometers of maritime territory, as well as an annual catch of 200,000 tonnes of fish and the right to develop some natural resources.
For its turn, the US contests Canadian rights to the Northwestern maritime route linking the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans. As of today, the route is open for only several weeks in summer. However, if the ice shield does recede, the navigation period may be prolonged and the commercial importance of the maritime route will drastically rise. Goods and cargos may bу transported to the Canadian port of Churchill (Hudson Bay), and then on southward by rail. An alternative variant is opening a new route between the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans. Then tankers and other large vessels would not have to double Cape Horn at the extremity of South America. The issue of the ownership of the maritime route gives rise to much friction between Canada and the US.
As yet unsettled remains the conflict between Denmark and Canada over tiny Hans Island in the Arctic between Greenland and the Canadian Island of Elsmer. Hans Island is a range of ice-capped uninhabited rocks, but the surrounding waters are rich in fish and shrimps, and the shelf, possibly, in oil as well. Canadians and Danes take turns in sending expeditions to the island and hoisting their national flags there, leaving whisky and brandy as a testimony of their visits. Recently Canada even announced its intention of boosting its military potential in the Arctic.
Surely, the unfolding scramble for the Arctic riches will hardly be a repetition of the great re-carving of territories in the XIX century. But under certain conditions it may acquire a rather nasty nature.
Some experts believe that the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf might contribute to settling some territorial disputes. Others point out that the Commission does not have enough authority and is not beyond favoritism. For example, recently the commission declined Russia's request for granting it additional rights to develop Arctic territories.
The problem is aggravated still more by the fact that the only world superpower - the US has not ratified so far the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. Influential circles in the US Congress oppose that document alleging that it infringes on US sovereignty.
There is every reason to believe that in order to settle the smoldering conflict in the Arctic all the concerned states should urgently seek mutually acceptable compromises. On that basis, a provisional inter-governmental authority could be set up, which would tackle in real earnest the matter of solving all territorial problems in the Arctic region.
