HAMUN 44 Security Council Topic A: Territorial Disputes in the Arctic Circle

HAMUN 44 Security Council Topic A: Territorial Disputes in the Arctic Circle

United Nations Security Council The Security Council (UNSC) was established in 1946 as one of the six main organs of the newly formed United Nations. It is the primary peacekeeping force within the international organization and is charged with maintaining international security. Unlike the other committees in the U.N., the Security Council has the unique capability to issue sanctions and to authorize military action. The Security Council often creates subsidiary committees to enforce varying resolutions. The UNSC is made up of fifteen members, five of which are permanent and ten of which rotate biennially. The five permanent members include the nations that won the Second World War: France, United Kingdom, The United States, China, and The Soviet Union (now Russia). There are ten additional rotating non-permanent members of the Security Council. The permanent states represented in the Security Council also maintain veto power, granting them the ability to unilaterally strike down any action proposed by the committee. That is, for a resolution to pass, each of these five nations must either approve or abstain from voting on it; put another way, if any of these countries object, the resolution automatically fails to pass. This basic structure has remained mostly intact since the UNSC s founding, and was intended as a compromise of sorts between the practical balance of power in the world (hence, the P5) and the need for all members of the UN to be represented (the elected positions). However, while the original Council had only eleven members its small size was supposed to enable it to make decisions more quickly the number of elected seats was increased from six to ten in 1965. (3 Zachary Laub, The UN Security Council, CFR.) The Security Council is one of the most visible bodies of the UN, having dealt with issues such as the non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, Iran, and North Korea, crises in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Liberia and Timor-Leste (East Timor), and broader issues, such as international terrorism. The Security Council was born at the end of the Second World War, at a time when many diplomats felt that a collective security mechanism was necessary to prevent the world from descending into a third major conflagration. Overall, the UN was not able to undertake many peacekeeping missions of its own (apart from the Suez crisis intervention in 1956, the first deployment of peacekeeping troops) as a direct result of the Cold

War dynamic. Nonetheless, considering the urgent and serious threats to international peace and security today, the Security Council, as an institution, is as needed as ever. Topic A Territorial Disputes in the Arctic Circle Statement of the Problem For a long time the Arctic region has been viewed as barren wasteland far from civilization due to its inaccessibility arising from layers of thick ice. Therefore, territorial claims have been relatively limited. Today the situation is different. With increasing international economic activity these disputes became more and more serious in the late 19th century. After the two World Wars the Artic became a majorly involved in Cold War activities and political effort was focused on keeping the area free of nuclear warheads and testing sites. Recent developments, however, have brought new tensions to the issue. The ground beneath the ice cover of the Artic is known to hold significant natural resources. Those resources are estimated to include as much as a third of the world s natural gas reserves. Due to ongoing global warming the expansion of the Arctic is shrinking making the exploitation of those resources more on more feasible. In addition to that new shipping routes between Atlantic become navigable with an enormous potential to shorten international shipping routes by as much as 40%. Its unique geographical location paired with its economic value make these disputes ongoing and unresolved until today. After the end of the Cold War in 1990 new approaches have been taken to resolve the issues between the neighboring states. At the same time as these economic opportunities become more and more viable the tension between of East and Western countries raise again. With quasi-military conflict in Ukraine and Syria the continuous disarmament of the Arctic is endangered and Russia has been observed to significantly increase its military presence in the area. The Arctic Ocean, mostly covered by an enormous ice shield, lies between Russia, Canada, the U.S.A. (Alaska), Denmark (Greenland), and Norway. Territorial disputes arise from various reasons. The continental shelf reaches much further into the Arctic Ocean then it does at many other shores making the usually applied 200miles-zone obsolete. The North Pole as

strategic important point is claimed by several of the neighboring countries and Russia has recently deployed a Russian flag to the ground of the Arctic Ocean beneath the North Pole. The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea With the stakes for coastal States rising in the Arctic, the legal framework relevant for the region gains major importance. As the Arctic is an ice-covered ocean, it falls under the scope of UNCLOS, which regulates the use of the world s oceans. In fact, the current international legal framework for the world s oceans, the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), divides the sea into various legal zones measured from the relevant coastal State s baseline (also described as the low-water line along the coast) with the State s sovereignty decreasing with increasing distance from the coast. The Convention establishes maritime baselines, from which several areas are defined. The degree of the coastal States sovereignty diminishes with increasing distance from the baseline. For some parts of the Arctic region international law provides a clear and largely undisputed answer to this question. These zones are referred to as the Territorial Sea (up to 12 nautical miles (nm) from the baseline), the Contiguous Zone (up to 24 nm) and the Exclusive Economic Zone (up to 200 nm) (EEZ). Here, the right to exploit natural resources lying in the seabed belongs to the coastal State (see in particular Article 56(1)(a) of UNCLOS).

Figure 1: "Legal Boundaries of the Oceans and Airspace." Maritime Zones, Law of the Sea. https://sites.tufts.edu/lawofthesea/chapter-two/ However, any exploitation of the seabed beyond the 200 nm EEZ is highly controversial. In this area, commonly referred to as the High Sea, no State has the right to autonomously exploit natural resources but has to apply to and cooperate with the International Seabed Authority which acts on behalf of mankind as a whole (see in particular Articles 137, 153, 157 UNCLOS), unless the coastal State proves that the respective resources lie within its continental shelf. The continental shelf is a maritime area consisting of the seabed and its subsoil attributable to an individual coastal State as a natural prolongation of its land territory and can, exceptionally, extend a State s right to exploitation beyond the 200 nm of its EEZ. Nonetheless, UNCLOS also entails dispute settlement mechanisms regarding the demarcation of maritime boundaries. UNCLOS obliges parties to the treaty to settle disputes by peaceful means and sets out different procedures, if no agreement is reached in negotiations between the disputing states. Hence, conflicting States can 18 choose to refer the case to the International

Tribunal of the Law of the Sea, the International Court of Justice or arbitral tribunals. However, UNCLOS also gives states the option to declare that they are not bound by these mechanisms. With the ratification of UNCLOS each signatory state had the opportunity to hand in their claim of continental shelf outside their EEZ. This needed to be done within a time frame of ten years after the respective country s ratification of the convention. All Arctic neighboring countries except the U.S.A. have ratified the convention and have handed in their claims. The U.S.A. is not allowed to hand in their claims under the umbrella of UNCLOS as they haven t ratified the convention so far. They have, however, submitted an informal claim not contradicting any other official claims of the other neighboring countries. In terms of official claims, however, Denmark was the last one due to submit their claim earlier in 2015 following its ratification of the convention in 2005. The claim contradicted both the Russian and Canadian claims which were handed in earlier and extends widely outside Denmark s Artic sector. The claim assumes that the so-called Lomonosov Ridge, an area of shallow waters in the Arctic, is part of the continental shelf of Greenland. If this is the case, that would strongly support Denmark s claim. This is however highly controversial as the Lomonosov Ridge connects Greenland s continental shelf with Russia s continental shelf. Denmark claims to define this extension of its continental shelf in accordance to Article 76 of UNCLOS. In addition to that, the strategically important North Pole would fall into the area defined by the Lomonosov Ridge as well. Hence the current understanding is that whoever can proof the ridge is part of their continental shelf will own the North Pole. A geological race has begun. (5)

Figure 2: Detailed Map of National Boundaries with Nautical Mile Limits. Increasing National Interests of Shipping Routes in the Arctic Region The consequences of climate change can be felt and observed all over the planet. However, its implications are much more severe and abrupt in the Arctic. The region is warming at approximately twice the rate of the global average, resulting in rapidly changing landscapes. Consequently, new shipping routes are opening, and vast resources are increasingly becoming available (1). In 1922, Arctic explorer Villjamur Stefansson predicted that there is no northern boundary beyond which productive enterprise cannot go until North meets North on the opposite shores of the Arctic Ocean as East has met West on the Pacific. (2) This statement mirrors the century old idea of cutting the distance and subsequent costs of vessels sailing from Asia or America to Europe, by navigating through the Arctic shipping routes. Sailing along the North

East-Passage, for instance, reduces the distance from Asia to Europe by 40% in comparison to the traditional route via the Suez Canal. There are two shipping routes in the Arctic that could significantly shorten international trade connections when navigable. Both shipping routes have gained additional attention recently as they become navigable for longer periods of time during the northern hemisphere s summer. This is mainly due to Climate Change and the ever-decreasing low of the expansion of the Arctic ice shield. The first is the so-called Northwest Passage off the northern coast of Canada leading through Canadian and U.S. territorial waters, in which Canada claims the islands and territorial waters around them as Canadian territory. Large parts of the Northwest Route are inside those territorial waters and do hence require Canadian permission to be used. In addition, Canada is also involved in a conflict with Denmark about the ownership of Hans Island. The uninhabited rock, which lies in the territorial waters of both states, is of strategic importance for the North West Passage and is believed to contain considerable reserves of oil. American ice breakers have, however, used the route without formally asking for permission by Canada as early as in the 1960s. (3. Rothwell DR. The Canadian-U.S. Northwest Passage Dispute: A Reassessment.) The Northern route along the north coast of Russia is less debated for various reasons. Firstly, it is the longer route from the Atlantic to the Pacific being only of economic advantage for a few northern European ports. Secondly, it is further north than the Northwest Passage meaning that the navigation conditions are worse due to longer ice coverage. Thirdly, it lies solely within Russian territorial waters making Russia uncontrovertibly in charge of managing the passage. The passage does, however, offer an alternative route to the Northwest Passage offering comparable economic advantages and navigation disadvantages. It remains unclear whether there will be competition between the routes and the countries managing them as soon as they become navigable in a significant manner. Natural Resources in the Arctic

The Arctic is presumed to hold about an eighth of the world s gas resources and some 25% of the world s gas resources (1). As the specific location of the resources is unknown there is a lot of national and international research currently ongoing to further estimate the feasibility of the exploitation of the national resources in the Arctic. Especially areas with shallow waters would allow a cheap exploitation of those natural resources comparable with the once in the Gulf of Mexico or the North Sea. Many of them are, however, at least now, covered by the Arctic ice shield during most of the year. The pace of climate change in the Arctic not only has huge implications for the economic potential of the region but also for its fragile ecosystem. Global warming in general is disrupting the food chain and affecting all Arctic species from the polar bear to the sea ice algae. However, the increased economic activity associated with it is devastating the marine environment even further. (4) Renewable energies, shelf gas and coal are alternative energy resources which are by far cheaper to exploit and in addition to that available much closer to the location where needed. Although potentially beneficial in the long-term, the exploitation of natural resources is as such not of utmost importance for the discussions today. Figure 2: Photo source: Kevin Kallaugher, The Economist, August 16, 2007

Militarization of the Arctic Even though any military conflict is currently noticeable in the Arctic, the tensions concerning territorial disputes and economic gains may create friction among the Arctic Five Norway, Denmark, Russia, Canada and the United States. Such a conflict may even have foreign interferences, since benefits from the Arctic may transcend the region borders and reach other countries, in Asia and Europe, especially. Bearing in mind that the international system is anarchic and all States are sovereign, with any power over them, the recent actions that have been taken by the Arctic countries may be seen as possibly provoking risks of incidents, which, as already noted, can lead to military confrontation. The artic is of high strategic and military importance to its neighboring countries. Military activity in the area dates to the Cold War when the Iron Curtain between the western hemisphere and the Soviet Union crossed the Artic twice; once in Europe and once between Alaska and the Soviet Union. In the case of a nuclear conflict, wide areas of the Arctic would have been destroyed. Hence, nuclear non-proliferation treaties were established to keep the Arctic free of nuclear armament. With the dismantlement of the Soviet Union in 1991 into its successor republics and the consequent end of the Cold War confrontation, military activity in the Arctic region underwent significant changes. Many of the (Now Russian) Northern Fleet submarines were decommissioned; the DEW line sites were handed back to Canada by the United States in 1990, and in 1993 a formal deactivation ceremony was held in Tuktoyaktuk, North-western Territories, Canada. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, cooperation initiatives in diverse fields related to the Arctic mushroomed in the international scene. The most prominent was the foundation of the Arctic Council in 1996.

Figure 4: Arctic Search and Rescue Zones showing National Country Limits. Recent tensions, especially in Ukraine, have, however, induced growing military activity in the Artic. Especially Russia has invested heavily in its military bases in the Arctic. Other neighboring, countries have been reluctant to follow Russia s example. This, as well as the fact that Russia covers the biggest Arctic sector, leads to a significant military disbalance in the Arctic. Currently, the military presence of Russia in the area is not seen as a direct threat to

peace, security and stability in the area. However, with growing tensions around territorial claims and two competing shipping routes that a very likely to become more and more economically viable over the next few years this military presence might proof to be a substantial advantage in the area. BLOC POSITIONS The neighbouring countries take positions that are equivalent with their recent efforts to ensure their position in the Arctic. Depending on the country their argumentation is either economically, politically, militarily or territorially based and might well include a combination of those arguments. It is hence important to address all these issues in the discussion. Many, especially western countries such as EU countries, see the growing military strength of Russia in the area with concern. However, the developments have not been dramatic enough to encourage western countries or alliances to become proactive in the area. However, countries who have been observing the recent military developments in Russia with great concern (e.g. Ukraine or the Baltic states) want to ensure that clear regulations for military engagement are proposed. Countries with export-oriented economies are mainly interested in new shipping routes that might become usable. They call for a fair and ideally internationally managed usage of Artic shipping routes. These countries include China, Japan, South Korea and EU countries. Oil exporting countries, mainly in the Middle East, but also other nations depending on the oil market such as Russia and the U.S.A., are worried about the impacts that a mass-exploitation of Artic oil and gas resources might have on the world market. Countries engaged in the conflict in the South China Sea observe the developments around the geological definition of territorial waters very closely as they might impact on the territorial claims there. If a new definition of continental shelf is discussed they will see that as precedence for the conflict in the South China see and want to make their voice heard. These countries include China and its allies in the conflict, Japan and its allies as well as other smaller states in the region.

QUESTIONS: Considering that an Arctic-specific legal regime is lacking, the expected new access to the Arctic does not only open up new opportunities for exploitation but also for heated territorial disputes concerning the question: Who owns the Arctic and, as a consequence, is entitled to the resources in the Arctic seabed? How can recent territorial and economic issues around the Northwest Passage be resolved peacefully? What can be done to prevent an increasing military presence in the Arctic and to maintain the neutral status of the region? How can the natural resources in the Artic be efficiently and sustainably managed to benefit the whole international community? Which state actors or international organizations should oversee managing such resources? How can impacts to the global economy be compensated and utilized to the advantage of the international community? Is there a necessity to negotiate a new international Arctic treaty and if so, what should its role and improvements over international regulations? How could such a treaty help to resolve territorial disputes?

Bibliography 1. http://archive.law.fsu.edu/journals/transnational/vol18_2/isted.pdf 2. http://www.worldpolicy.org/blog/2015/04/08/futureshippingtradearcticwaters 3. Rothwell DR. The Canadian-U.S. Northwest Passage Dispute: A Reassessment. 4. http://archive.law.fsu.edu/journals/transnational/vol18_2/isted.pdf, pages 366-369. 5. The Economist. Frozen conflict - Denmark claims the North Pole. [Online].; 2015 [cited 2018 12 2.] Available from: http://www.economist.com/news/international/21636756-denmark-claimsnorth-pole-froz en-conflict.