UN to play mediator in Arctic disputes

At stake is an estimated one-quarter of world's petroleum deposits on northern ocean floor May 29, 2008 04:30 AM Peter Gorrie ENVIRONMENT REPORTER Canada and four other Arctic nations promised yesterday to politely settle disputes over resource-rich Arctic territory that have previously stirred up diplomatic storms. At a one-day meeting in Greenland, Natural Resources Minister Gary Lunn and politicians from Denmark, Russia, the United States and Norway agreed to let the United Nations resolve their conflicting claims to the northern ocean floor, estimated to hold one-quarter of the world's petroleum deposits. "We are states that border the Arctic Ocean, and we have a responsibility to ensure that we put in the safeguards ... that we co-operate," Lunn said in Ilulissat, a town of 6,000 on Greenland's western coast beside a fjord that spawns many of the icebergs that float down the North Atlantic. The disputes have sparked heated words in recent years, most notably when Denmark planted its flag on a tiny rock outcrop called Hans Island in 2003 and again last year, when a Russian submarine crew put a flag on a disputed part of the ocean floor. But the issues are covered by the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, ratified by 151 countries. The five ministers agreed to stop bickering and work out their differences under that treaty. "The five nations have now declared that they will follow the rules," said Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller. "We have hopefully quelled all myths about a race for the North Pole once and for all." They also agreed to work co-operatively on environmental and security concerns in the Arctic, where warming temperatures and melting ice are leading to a dramatic increase in human activity and threats to the fragile environment. Environmentalists slammed the deal as a "carving up" of a region that's still relatively pristine but promises great wealth in oil, minerals, trade and tourism. They want a global treaty for the Arctic similar to the one that bans mining and military activity in the Antarctic. They also complained that representatives of the other Arctic nations, as well as Inuit and environment groups, were kept out of the closed-door session. "We would suggest that all the nations up there should agree not to open it up for drilling," said Tarjai Haaland, a climate and energy campaigner with Greenpeace Nordic. The five nations explicitly rejected the call for a replacement treaty. There is no need to develop "a new comprehensive international legal regime to govern the Arctic Ocean," the declaration stated. A Canadian expert on the Arctic agreed. Better to have a peaceful means of resolving disputes than embark on a lengthy, unpredictable try at a new treaty, said Michael Byers, professor of global law at the University of British Columbia. "The Law of the Sea is not perfect, but we have it," he said. "That the five countries reaffirmed their commitment to it can only be a good thing in a time of incredibly rapid change. We're not dealing with the Wild West here." Critics noted the irony of the conference location. The deal to allocate the huge fossil fuel reserves was held near the Ilulissat glacier – a world heritage site – that is melting and flowing toward the sea at an increasing rate as climate change warms Greenland. The major disputes centre on ocean-floor areas that are beyond the countries' 370-kilometre territorial limit but, under the Law of the Sea, are open to being claimed because they are part of the continental shelf or ridges extending from it. Canada is spending $40 million to map the seabed to support its claim for parts of the seabed, and the other four nations are preparing their own evidence. Canada and the United States also disagree on whether the Northwest Passage is an international waterway, and over how the international boundary between Alaska and Yukon should be extended into the Beaufort Sea.