As the Arctic continues to lose its sea ice cover, it becomes more accessible to marine use of any kind. With this change come growing questions about issues such as, who owns the Arctic Ocean? What rights to different operators have to operate within the Arctic Ocean, and what sort of restrictions may apply. Here's where something called the United Nations Convention Law of the Sea comes into play. What is the United Nations Law Convention of the Sea or UNCLOS as it's called. It defines maritime zones and regulates marine sovereignty rights and rights of use. It turns out as of June 2016,167 countries in the EEU have joined and are part of the UNCLOS or follow UNCLOS. The United States has never signed on. It has no seat at the table despite being an arctic nation. Russia, as it turns out, has made new claims under UNCLOS. This figure here is just a simple schematic of different marine zones. Will talk about some of the other important ones in a minute. But I just wanted to show you this figure. We have a baseline that's on the left. You see this baseline that set. Now landward of that is something called internal waters. Beyond that out to typically 12 nautical miles is something called the territorial sea of a nation. Going out to 200 nautical miles from that baseline, goes out to the end of something called the exclusive economic zone. Beyond that is the high seas. Now, you'll see there's also a designation here for airspace. From the end of the territorial seas and landward back through internal waters, that's viewed as national airspace. Ocean word of that is viewed as international airspace. You see that this are the aerospace designation as well. But here we're just going to be talking about what's going on in terms of these marine boundaries. Internal waters, what are those? These are viewed as all the waters that fall landward of this baseline, which I talked about, such as lakes, rivers, and tidewaters. States have the same sovereign jurisdiction over those internal waters as they do over other territory in their nation. There is no what we call "right of innocent passage", which I'll get to briefly here. Now, territorial sea going out from that. Much like these internal waters, coastal states have the sovereignty and jurisdiction over the territorial sea. Rights extend from the surface to the seabed and subsoil right down below, as well as vertically into airspace. Most states have established territorial seas at the 12 nautical mile limit. Apparently there are some exceptions although we will have to read up more on those. Now the exclusive economic zone. Exclusive rights, this includes exclusive rights to resources or their protection. In the water, seafloor or under the sea floor, exclusive rights to engage in any kind of off-shore generation of any type that could be drilling for oil and natural gas, going after minerals, I suppose that means if you want to put a windmills and things like that. Also in exclusive economic zone, a state may establish and use artificial islands, installations and structures or conduct research. In other words, if you want to drill for oil or natural gas and put up an artificial island to do so within your exclusive economic zone, you can do so. This map is showing the Arctic and what the high seas part of the Arctic. This is beyond the exclusive economic zones of the different nations. You see it's surrounded by the exclusive economic zones. It's restricted there. It's a hole in the middle of the Arctic, not a well-defined hole, non-literary neat hole, but there is at the high seas. It's enclosed on all sides by the exclusive economic zones of each of these different nations. I just want to go back and say the high seas, nobody owns those. You can do whatever you want in the high seas. Any nation can make use of those high seas. Here's right of innocent passage it is something I already mentioned. What the right of innocent passage refers to is traversing a territorial sea without entering internal waters or calling at a roadstead or port facility outside internal waters. Kind of a mouthful, so trying to think about this a little more, maybe offline. Also proceeding to or from internal waters or a call at such roadstead or port facility. Passage must also be continuous and expeditious. You can't move like a turtle there. You got to move through in a workmanlike manner. Now, a great example of "right of innocent passage" is with respect to the Strait of Malacca, a fairly narrow strait, but there's a lot of ship traffic that goes through it. Often uses the prime example of "right of innocent passage" is the Strait of Malacca. Now, let's consider the Bering Strait. This strait lies within the territorial seas of Russia and the US, and the remaining waters line within the exclusive economic zones of the two countries. And it turns out that in the Bering Strait, right of innocent passage holds. Here, we see a map showing Eastern Russia on the left and Alaska on the right. You could see really that it's showing here the blue on the left and the green on the right, the exclusive economic zones of the two countries, and you see it, it's really split down the middle, but right of innocent passage holds. Now, here's a question. Does right of innocent passage under UNCLOS apply to the Northwest Passage? The answer is no. Now, there's a bit of a controversy here. Canada used the Northwest Passage basically as its internal waters. The United States begs to differ, but they've agreed to disagree on this. We have to remember, the whole question of right of innocent passage under UNCLOS applying to the Northwest Passage. Well, it's not an issue that came up before because the Northwest Passage is basically been an unnavigable waterway. What about Fram Strait? Fram straight, that's that Strait between Greenland and Svalbard Archipelago. Does that fall under right of innocent passage? The answer there is no again, because this is just an international strait. That's a rather broad strait, It's just viewed as an international strait. Whoever wants to go through that can, right? No issues, right? With the Bering Strait, yeah, people can go through there from any nation, but through a right of innocent passage. There's a difference there. Now, there's an article 76 in UNCLOS that says that a coastal state can extend its jurisdictional continental shelf and thus gain marine sovereignty rights beyond the 200 nautical mile exclusive economic zone. Now, it turns out that if you're going to do this, claims have to be filed with the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf, and supporting geoscientific data must be provided. Well, this is what Russia tried to do. In 2001, they've made a claim that the Lomonosov Ridge, which runs right up to the North Pole and then to Canada with right across the Arctic Ocean is an extension of their continental shelf, and therefore, they have rights to it. Now, if Canada has claimed to the Lomonosov Ridge because I think it was right across the Arctic Ocean, it could reach 200 nautical miles beyond the pole because they'd split it between Canada and Russia. Well, it turns out that while Canada has made no claim and Russia's claim has been widely dismissed as puffery really. Now, this map here is just showing the Arctic Ocean, and I'm showing you in that red ellipse there, that's where the Lomonosov Ridge is, so it really extends from Russia right across the Arctic Ocean, essentially across the pole, right down to the other side of the Arctic Ocean. More or less, if Canada and Russia both wanted to make claims and both claims turned out to be supported, they basically split it down the middle, but it doesn't look like it's going to happen because it doesn't seem to hold much water. Nevertheless, Russia has tried to exert its sovereignty or demonstrated sovereignty by, for example, in 2007, planting the Russian flag at the North Pole on the bottom of the ocean. We'll see what happens. But any case, I hope you've learned a little bit about the United Nations Convention Law of the Sea. At this point, it seems to be holding very well, but of course, everyone has to play the game fairly. Thank you.
