http://arctic-council.org/article/2008/4/the_north_is_not_the_wild_west
Arctic Council - Norweigian Chairmanship 2006-2008
29 April, 2008
The North is not the wild West
There are clear rules governing the Arctic, and there should be no risk for the Arctic descending into armed conflict. The United Nations Convention on the Law the Sea is the comprehensive multilateral regime that applies in the Arctic, says Hans Corell, former undersecretary-general for legal affairs of the United Nations in The Globe and Mail, Canadas largest newspaper. Hans Corell comments an article by Scott Borgerson, titled Arctic Meltdown and mentioned earlier on this homepage.
Mr. Corell continues: "The article correctly points to the effects of global warming in the Arctic, to melting ice, to new shipping lanes, to new possibilities for extracting minerals and to increased access to fish and timber. Mr. Borgerson raises many questions that need to be addressed.
It is therefore disturbing, to say the least, to read his assertions that the Arctic region is not currently governed by any comprehensive multilateral norms and regulations. The reason for this, he says, is that the Arctic was never expected to become a navigable waterway or a site for large-scale commercial development.
At the same time, he suggests that certain Arctic powers (Canada, Russia, Denmark and Norway) are scrambling for territory and "racing to carve up the region." He even suggests that the region could "erupt in an armed mad dash for its resources." This description is not only misleading, it is an utterly irresponsible way of describing the situation.
The United Nations Convention on the Law the Sea is the comprehensive multilateral regime that applies in the Arctic. There is nothing to suggest otherwise.
As far as the rights of coastal states are concerned, the convention distinguishes between territorial sea, the exclusive economic zone and the continental shelf. Apart from the territorial sea, which extends 12 nautical miles from the baselines, the questions that arise in the Arctic are definitely not about territory over which states have sovereignty.
The point of departure when it comes to the exclusive economic zone and the continental shelf is that the rules that govern the high seas apply, in particular the principle of freedom of navigation. According to the convention, no state may validly purport to subject any part of the high seas to its sovereignty, and every state has the right to sail ships flying its flag on the high seas.
Of particular interest is the extent to which the coastal states in the Arctic can lay claims to the continental shelf beyond the 200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zone. This is a matter to be determined by the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf in accordance with specific rules laid down in the convention.
The first application received by the commission was the one made by Russia in 2001. It was made in accordance with applicable rules; it is certainly not an "ambitious annexation," as Mr. Borgerson suggests. The commission did not approve the application as presented; the matter is still pending.
It might be tempting to refer, as Mr. Borgerson does, to the planting of the Russian flag on the sea floor near the Pole. But legally, this ceremony is completely irrelevant. Any suggestion to the contrary should be effectively rebutted, and this is precisely why it is so important to refer to and rigorously apply the Law of the Sea Convention, which forbids assertion of sovereignty over the high seas.
As chairman of my country's delegation in three maritime delimitation negotiations with neighbouring states, I know from experience that the convention is of tremendous assistance in finding solutions where, otherwise, tensions of a political nature might arise.
It is therefore surprising to note that the United States has still not ratified the convention. Mr. Borgerson suggests that Washington should lead the way toward a multilateral diplomatic solution in the Arctic.
I believe there are many who would agree that the best way for the U.S. to achieve this would be to ratify the Law of the Sea Convention and to unite with the more than 150 other states that have already done so, among them the other four Arctic coastal states, in respecting the rules laid down in the convention.
[MR. CORELL PROCLAIMS UNITED NATIONS 'SOLIDARITY' SHOULD BE THE ORDER OF THE DAY.]
It should also be mentioned that sea areas in the Arctic that will not constitute exclusive economic zones or continental shelf will belong to an area, the resources of which are referred to in the Convention as the "common heritage of mankind."
[THE COMMON HERITAGE OF MANKIND DOCTRINE IS THE COMMUNITARIAN, REDISTRIBUTIONOF WEALTH DOCTRINE OF THE GLOBAL COMMONS KNOWN OTHERWISE AS RES COMMUNIS, WHICH IMPOSES A LEGAL OBLIGATION OF ERGES OMNES ON EACH NATION NOT TO HARM THE ENVIRONMENT, AND TO CONSERVE LIVING & NONLIVING NATURAL RESOURCES SO THAT THEY MAY BE REDISTRIBUTED FOR THE BENEFIT OF MANKIND.]
There are clear provisions to the effect that no state shall claim or exercise sovereignty or sovereign rights over any part of this area or its resources.
The fact that the Law of the Sea Convention applies in the Arctic certainly does not mean that there is no need for further work at the international level. Indeed, there is, in particular for the protection of the environment in this extremely sensitive area.
The Convention already contains explicit rules that oblige states to protect and preserve the marine environment. According to these rules, states have the sovereign right to exploit their natural resources pursuant to their environmental policies. But this must always be done in accordance with their duty to protect and preserve the marine environment.
Here, there is a great need for states, both at the global and regional level, and in particular the Arctic states, to join hands with a view to elaborating such new rules and establishing such new measures and regimes that will be necessary because of the changing conditions in the Arctic.
[KUMBAYA!]
This applies in particular to measures designed to prevent, reduce and control pollution of the extremely sensitive marine environment in the region.
The convention contains express provisions on the need for such rules and regimes, including even special rules that apply to ice-covered areas.
So, contrary to what Mr. Borgerson asserts, there are clear rules that govern the Arctic. If these rules are respected by all states, including in particular by the United States, there should be no risk for the Arctic descending into armed conflict."
As undersecretary-general for legal affairs of the United Nations, 1994-2004, Hans Corell was responsible for supervising matters relating to the law of the sea, including the establishment of the International Seabed Authority, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, and the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf.
Showing posts with label sound science. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sound science. Show all posts
Monday, May 5, 2008
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Continental Shelf Confusion Over Detritus Of The Deep
http://online.wsj.com/public/article_print/SB120363436202384279.html
Board of Scientists Is Swamped By Claims For Rich Sea Floors
SCIENCE JOURNAL
By ROBERT LEE HOTZ
February 22, 2008; Page B1
Few people know of Alexandre Albuquerque. The 67-year-old retired Brazilian naval commander slips in and out of New York several times a year, unnoticed among dignitaries and tourists around the United Nations Plaza. There, in a windowless fourth-floor conference room, he works in secrecy to redraw the economic map of the oceans.
An expert in maritime boundaries, Mr. Albuquerque is brokering the largest peacetime expansion of national territories in modern memory, encompassing millions of square miles of potentially rich reserves of oil, gas and minerals on unclaimed coastal sea floor.
[DOES THE TERM 'BROKERING' IN THIS CONTEXT MEAN 'MEDIATING'??? OR, DOES IT MEAN 'NEGOTIATING'??? IF THE GOAL IS TRULY THE SECURING OF POLITICAL CONSENSUS, AS NOTED BELOW, DOES THE TERM 'BROKERING' REALLY INVOLVE BOTH??? IF SO, THEN WHAT IS THE ACTUAL ROLE THAT SCIENCE SERVES?? ]
As international legal deadlines come due next year, economic ambitions in up to 60 countries ride on his technical acumen -- and limited time.
Mr. Albuquerque is the new chairman of the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf, a part-time group of 21 geoscientists from around the world who serve as sole referee for coastal sea-floor claims brought under the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea.
Already, the commission has more than it can handle. It expects as many as 50 new sea-floor claims to be filed by the May 2009 submission deadline for many treaty signatories.
(The U.S. hasn't signed the Law of the Sea convention.) Those claims may take decades to settle, with trillions of dollars in untapped mineral resources held in abeyance.
The commission has pressed in vain for more funding to review so much new data. The delays are "not fair to the coastal states," says Mr. Albuquerque.
"We are part-timers; we have other jobs," adds commissioner Peter Croker, an Irish petroleum expert and former chairman who helped to prepare Ireland's Law of the Sea claim. "Are we up to the task? Not really, to be honest."
[THE WORLD'S GOVERNMENTS ARE DEPENDING ON THE EXPERTISE OF PART-TIMERS WHO ARE OVER-WORKED AND UNDER-PAID TO SECURE THEIR SOVEREIGN CLAIMS TO THE OCEANS' BOTTOM??? IS THIS WHAT THE U.S. NAVY IS HANGING ITS ADMIRAL'S HAT ON??]
At Mr. Albuquerque's conference table, science substitutes for gunboat diplomacy. Rising to greet a recent visitor, Mr. Albuquerque -- 6 feet, 2 inches tall with curly white hair -- smiles discreetly. It is a measure of his delicate position that, in granting a rare interview as chairman, Mr. Albuquerque has to be circumspect about his work. He is bound by the treaty that employs him to keep commission proceedings and details of claims confidential.
Mr. Albuquerque is by training a hydrographer. For 20 years, he helped map Brazil's continental shelf and still works for its directorate of hydrography and navigation. Since 1991, he has devoted his professional life to the 600 words of Article 76 of the Law of the Sea, which in archaic and elusive terms defines the borders of the ocean floor and any allowable claim to it.
Policing this scientific frontier, Mr. Albuquerque and his colleagues parse the technical nuances of sea slopes and sediments in the voluminous data submitted by countries seeking, or challenging, authority over bands of ocean floor up to 150 miles beyond the existing 200-mile limit.
CLAIMING THE DEEP
It's been called the last drawing of the boundaries on our planet and it is up to the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf3 to ensure that national claims to coastal sea-floor territories are scientifically sound, under the terms of Article 764 of the 1982 UN Convention of the Law of The Sea.
GNS Science5, a New Zealand government-owned research organization, offers a primer6 on Article 76 and its formal definitions of land mass, continental shelf, and deep ocean floor.
New Zealand's Continental Shelf Project Team7 wrote a booklet8 on the challenges they encountered in applying Article 76 to the real-world submarine morphology and geology of the Southwest Pacific.
Last October, the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations held a hearing9 on the Law of The Sea, which the U.S. has not signed. The staff of U.S. Sen. Richard G. Lugar, the committee's ranking Republican, assembled a FAQ10 on the U.S. and the UN convention.
In the meantime, an extensive sea-floor mapping effort has been underway at The University of New Hampshire's Law of The Sea Mapping Project11. Since 2003, researchers have been collecting multi-beam bathymetry and acoustic backscatter data that can be used to support claims by the U.S. and other countries to the extended continental shelf in the Pacific, the Arctic and the Atlantic.
What is at stake? "Money. Money, of course," Mr. Albuquerque says. Contested areas of the Arctic, for example, may contain 25% of the world's oil and gas. "The commission is important to allow countries to make agreements among themselves in a peaceful way, instead of struggling for resources."
Countries must justify any expansion of their underwater territory with sonar surveys, seismic readings, gravity maps, depth charts and geomagnetic tracings. All must pass muster with Mr. Albuquerque and his board.
The commission doesn't have the authority to settle any maritime disputes between countries. Instead, it works toward consensus on the scientific details of each sea-floor claim. "The commission is not entitled to tell the coastal states what to do and how to do it. Our work is to verify, check, examine," Mr. Albuquerque says. "Of course, we have doubts, and then we have questions. We cannot say we accept or reject. We examine the submission and make recommendations."
[IF THE COMMISSION DOESN'T HAVE THE AUTHORITY TO SETTLE DISPUTES AND IS UNABLE TO ENFORCE ITS DETERMINATIONS & RECOMMENDATIONS, THEN WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE SUBMITTING COUNTRY DISAGREES?? WHEN OTHER COUNTRIES DISAGREE?? COUNTRIES ARE NOT BOUND TO ACCEPT THE COMMISSION'S RECOMMENDATIONS. THEN WHAT?? MORE APPEALS??]
Once a coastal country accepts the commission's recommendations, however, the maritime borders are "final and binding," by the terms of the 1982 convention. There are NO provisions for appeal, and the jurisdiction of any international court has not been tested.
The 11-year-old commission has been working on the nine claims submitted since it began accepting cases in 2001. They have yet to finalize most rulings, requesting more precise data.
[NONE OF WHICH HAVE COME TO RESOLUTION - A VERY EFFICIENT PROCESS!]
It's expensive to open a case. New Zealand reportedly budgeted $40 million to prepare its submission. New Zealand and Australia each are said to seek half a million square miles or more of sea floor. Russia wants the North Pole. It also seeks portions of the surrounding Arctic sea floor; so do Canada, Denmark and Norway. A hard copy of data from the Russian Federation could fill the conference room from floor to ceiling.
No one outside the proceedings knows all the technical details of the territory at stake; the commission makes public only a summary of each submission.
Should it ratify the treaty, the U.S. is poised to claim areas in the Arctic, the Pacific and the Atlantic that encompass an area the size of California, with resources valued at an estimated $1.3 trillion. The Bush administration sought Senate approval of the treaty this year but that now appears unlikely, a senior U.S. State Department official said. Opponents fear U.N. interference in U.S. sovereign affairs.
Hyperlinks in this Article:
(1) http://forums.wsj.com/viewtopic.php? t=1491
(2) http://forums.wsj.com/viewtopic.php? t=1491
(3) http://www.un.org/Depts/los/clcs_new/clcs_home.htm
(4) http://www.un.org/Depts/los/convention_agreements/texts/unclos/part6.htm
(5) http://www.gns.cri.nz/
(6) http://www.unclosnz.org.nz/prolongation.html
(7) http://www.linz.govt.nz/docs/hydrography/currentprojects/continentalshelf/newsletter-apr06.pdf
(8) http://www.unclosnz.org.nz/booklet.html
(9) http://www.senate.gov/~foreign/hearings/2007/hrg071004a.html
(10) http://lugar.senate.gov/sfrc/questions.html
(11) http://ccom.unh.edu/index.php? page=image_gallery/photos.php&p=26273134353946475152799495&page=law_of_the_sea.php (12) mailto:sciencejournal@wsj.com
(13) http://forums.wsj.com/viewtopic.php? t=1491
Board of Scientists Is Swamped By Claims For Rich Sea Floors
SCIENCE JOURNAL
By ROBERT LEE HOTZ
February 22, 2008; Page B1
Few people know of Alexandre Albuquerque. The 67-year-old retired Brazilian naval commander slips in and out of New York several times a year, unnoticed among dignitaries and tourists around the United Nations Plaza. There, in a windowless fourth-floor conference room, he works in secrecy to redraw the economic map of the oceans.
An expert in maritime boundaries, Mr. Albuquerque is brokering the largest peacetime expansion of national territories in modern memory, encompassing millions of square miles of potentially rich reserves of oil, gas and minerals on unclaimed coastal sea floor.
[DOES THE TERM 'BROKERING' IN THIS CONTEXT MEAN 'MEDIATING'??? OR, DOES IT MEAN 'NEGOTIATING'??? IF THE GOAL IS TRULY THE SECURING OF POLITICAL CONSENSUS, AS NOTED BELOW, DOES THE TERM 'BROKERING' REALLY INVOLVE BOTH??? IF SO, THEN WHAT IS THE ACTUAL ROLE THAT SCIENCE SERVES?? ]
As international legal deadlines come due next year, economic ambitions in up to 60 countries ride on his technical acumen -- and limited time.
Mr. Albuquerque is the new chairman of the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf, a part-time group of 21 geoscientists from around the world who serve as sole referee for coastal sea-floor claims brought under the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea.
Already, the commission has more than it can handle. It expects as many as 50 new sea-floor claims to be filed by the May 2009 submission deadline for many treaty signatories.
(The U.S. hasn't signed the Law of the Sea convention.) Those claims may take decades to settle, with trillions of dollars in untapped mineral resources held in abeyance.
The commission has pressed in vain for more funding to review so much new data. The delays are "not fair to the coastal states," says Mr. Albuquerque.
"We are part-timers; we have other jobs," adds commissioner Peter Croker, an Irish petroleum expert and former chairman who helped to prepare Ireland's Law of the Sea claim. "Are we up to the task? Not really, to be honest."
[THE WORLD'S GOVERNMENTS ARE DEPENDING ON THE EXPERTISE OF PART-TIMERS WHO ARE OVER-WORKED AND UNDER-PAID TO SECURE THEIR SOVEREIGN CLAIMS TO THE OCEANS' BOTTOM??? IS THIS WHAT THE U.S. NAVY IS HANGING ITS ADMIRAL'S HAT ON??]
At Mr. Albuquerque's conference table, science substitutes for gunboat diplomacy. Rising to greet a recent visitor, Mr. Albuquerque -- 6 feet, 2 inches tall with curly white hair -- smiles discreetly. It is a measure of his delicate position that, in granting a rare interview as chairman, Mr. Albuquerque has to be circumspect about his work. He is bound by the treaty that employs him to keep commission proceedings and details of claims confidential.
Mr. Albuquerque is by training a hydrographer. For 20 years, he helped map Brazil's continental shelf and still works for its directorate of hydrography and navigation. Since 1991, he has devoted his professional life to the 600 words of Article 76 of the Law of the Sea, which in archaic and elusive terms defines the borders of the ocean floor and any allowable claim to it.
Policing this scientific frontier, Mr. Albuquerque and his colleagues parse the technical nuances of sea slopes and sediments in the voluminous data submitted by countries seeking, or challenging, authority over bands of ocean floor up to 150 miles beyond the existing 200-mile limit.
CLAIMING THE DEEP
It's been called the last drawing of the boundaries on our planet and it is up to the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf3 to ensure that national claims to coastal sea-floor territories are scientifically sound, under the terms of Article 764 of the 1982 UN Convention of the Law of The Sea.
GNS Science5, a New Zealand government-owned research organization, offers a primer6 on Article 76 and its formal definitions of land mass, continental shelf, and deep ocean floor.
New Zealand's Continental Shelf Project Team7 wrote a booklet8 on the challenges they encountered in applying Article 76 to the real-world submarine morphology and geology of the Southwest Pacific.
Last October, the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations held a hearing9 on the Law of The Sea, which the U.S. has not signed. The staff of U.S. Sen. Richard G. Lugar, the committee's ranking Republican, assembled a FAQ10 on the U.S. and the UN convention.
In the meantime, an extensive sea-floor mapping effort has been underway at The University of New Hampshire's Law of The Sea Mapping Project11. Since 2003, researchers have been collecting multi-beam bathymetry and acoustic backscatter data that can be used to support claims by the U.S. and other countries to the extended continental shelf in the Pacific, the Arctic and the Atlantic.
What is at stake? "Money. Money, of course," Mr. Albuquerque says. Contested areas of the Arctic, for example, may contain 25% of the world's oil and gas. "The commission is important to allow countries to make agreements among themselves in a peaceful way, instead of struggling for resources."
Countries must justify any expansion of their underwater territory with sonar surveys, seismic readings, gravity maps, depth charts and geomagnetic tracings. All must pass muster with Mr. Albuquerque and his board.
The commission doesn't have the authority to settle any maritime disputes between countries. Instead, it works toward consensus on the scientific details of each sea-floor claim. "The commission is not entitled to tell the coastal states what to do and how to do it. Our work is to verify, check, examine," Mr. Albuquerque says. "Of course, we have doubts, and then we have questions. We cannot say we accept or reject. We examine the submission and make recommendations."
[IF THE COMMISSION DOESN'T HAVE THE AUTHORITY TO SETTLE DISPUTES AND IS UNABLE TO ENFORCE ITS DETERMINATIONS & RECOMMENDATIONS, THEN WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE SUBMITTING COUNTRY DISAGREES?? WHEN OTHER COUNTRIES DISAGREE?? COUNTRIES ARE NOT BOUND TO ACCEPT THE COMMISSION'S RECOMMENDATIONS. THEN WHAT?? MORE APPEALS??]
Once a coastal country accepts the commission's recommendations, however, the maritime borders are "final and binding," by the terms of the 1982 convention. There are NO provisions for appeal, and the jurisdiction of any international court has not been tested.
The 11-year-old commission has been working on the nine claims submitted since it began accepting cases in 2001. They have yet to finalize most rulings, requesting more precise data.
[NONE OF WHICH HAVE COME TO RESOLUTION - A VERY EFFICIENT PROCESS!]
It's expensive to open a case. New Zealand reportedly budgeted $40 million to prepare its submission. New Zealand and Australia each are said to seek half a million square miles or more of sea floor. Russia wants the North Pole. It also seeks portions of the surrounding Arctic sea floor; so do Canada, Denmark and Norway. A hard copy of data from the Russian Federation could fill the conference room from floor to ceiling.
No one outside the proceedings knows all the technical details of the territory at stake; the commission makes public only a summary of each submission.
Should it ratify the treaty, the U.S. is poised to claim areas in the Arctic, the Pacific and the Atlantic that encompass an area the size of California, with resources valued at an estimated $1.3 trillion. The Bush administration sought Senate approval of the treaty this year but that now appears unlikely, a senior U.S. State Department official said. Opponents fear U.N. interference in U.S. sovereign affairs.
Hyperlinks in this Article:
(1) http://forums.wsj.com/viewtopic.php? t=1491
(2) http://forums.wsj.com/viewtopic.php? t=1491
(3) http://www.un.org/Depts/los/clcs_new/clcs_home.htm
(4) http://www.un.org/Depts/los/convention_agreements/texts/unclos/part6.htm
(5) http://www.gns.cri.nz/
(6) http://www.unclosnz.org.nz/prolongation.html
(7) http://www.linz.govt.nz/docs/hydrography/currentprojects/continentalshelf/newsletter-apr06.pdf
(8) http://www.unclosnz.org.nz/booklet.html
(9) http://www.senate.gov/~foreign/hearings/2007/hrg071004a.html
(10) http://lugar.senate.gov/sfrc/questions.html
(11) http://ccom.unh.edu/index.php? page=image_gallery/photos.php&p=26273134353946475152799495&page=law_of_the_sea.php (12) mailto:sciencejournal@wsj.com
(13) http://forums.wsj.com/viewtopic.php? t=1491
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