Arctic Ocean Territorial Claims

Summary: As the Arctic ice cap thins and retreats, the prospect of petroleum reserves under the Arctic sea bed has touched off a diplomatic race to lay claim to the territory. Russia, Canada, and Denmark so far are the main contenders for claims to the underwater sea bed and ocean navigation through the "Northwest Passage." Geologists are divided on the likelihood of large petroleum deposits under the Arctic and the feasibility of extracting them.

The first political confrontation caused by climate change may have already begun in the Arctic Ocean, where a dramatic thinning of the ice shelf has caused neighboring nations - notably Russia, Canada, and Denmark - to lodge possibly competing territorial claims that would include petroleum reserves.

Most scientists believe that due to climate change, the ice shelf that covers most of the Arctic Ocean for most of the year has been steadily thinning and shrinking during the summer to an unprecedented extent, raising the prospect of petroleum exploration in an area where it never would have been possible in the past.

Some geologists have speculated that petroleum reserves under the Arctic Ocean could comprise up to 25 percent of undiscovered reserves in an era when the prospect of peak oil exploration has been raised with respect to known deposits.

Although the competing territorial claims do not explicitly mention rights to undersea petroleum deposits, this subject is widely thought to be at the heart of claims lodged by Russia, Canada, and Denmark (on the grounds of its sovereignty over Greenland). Other countries with shores on the Arctic and prospective territorial claims include the United States, Norway, Sweden, and Finland.

A secondary interest that could result in diplomatic tensions is control over far-north shipping routes - among them, the fabled Northwest Passage - that are also a prospect in an era of retreating Arctic icecap.

The Icecap

In summer 2007, surveys of the Arctic ice cap showed it had retreated more than at any time on record. Some geologists blamed the retreat on the larger phenomenon of climate change while also conceding that "normal" variations in weather patterns could have contributed to 2007's record.

In September 2007, the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado in Boulder reported that the Arctic ice cap had retreated to an area of 1.59 million square miles at the autumnal equinox, after which the ice cap was expected to begin growing again. This was the smallest area since measurements began in 1979. Anecdotal records suggest the area had not been this small at any time in the twentieth century. (For purposes of comparison, the area of shrinkage was about eight times the land area of California.)

One result of the shrinkage is that the side of the Arctic Ocean bordering on Alaska had thousands of square miles of clear water as of late September 2007, effectively opening a "Northwest Passage" between the North Atlantic and North Pacific through islands of northern Canada and north of Russia for several weeks.

A researcher at the snow and ice center, Mark Serreze, was quoted by The New York Times on September 21, 2007, as saying: "You can always find some aspect of natural variability that can explain some things. But now it seems patterns that used to help you don't help as much anymore, and the ones that hurt you hurt you more. You can't dismiss this as natural variability. We're starting to see the system respond to global warming."

An earlier study published by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded that the Arctic Ocean could be entirely clear of ice during the summer as early as 2050.

The 2007 studies were published shortly after the start of a two-year international project sponsored by sixty countries on changes in the north and south poles, the first such study in fifty years. Experts in the polar regions have said these areas are likely to be the most-affected by the trend toward global warming.

Whether the Arctic region has substantial petroleum reserves and whether they can be retrieved using known technology is the subject of uncertainty and debate. Estimates of possible reserves vary greatly and go as high as 400 million barrels, leading some observers to call the area "the next Saudi Arabia."

Extracting oil from beneath the Arctic poses unique challenges, notably in the fact that drilling platforms cannot be set on floating ice sheets. Anchoring platforms on the seabed, as in other oceans, raises the prospect of the platforms being shifted or crushed by mobile sheets of thick ice during the winter.

The method of exploring for oil deposits in warm-water oceans uses giant air guns to send shockwaves under the ocean floor, which are then interpreted by geologists as possibly suggesting a rock structure consistent with petroleum deposits. The presence of ice in the Arctic Ocean may present a major flaw in this technique.

Territorial Claims

Well in advance of definitive conclusions about changes in polar ice, several countries bordering the Arctic have already taken steps to assert potentially competing territorial claims over the region. Most observers agree that the prospect of discovering large underwater petroleum reserves is a major motivation for these claims.

Operating equipment in temperatures that regularly fall to -20 degrees Fahrenheit (~ -30 Celsius)) also presents issues in terms of the behavior of lubricants, metals, and other materials.

The economic and practical feasibility of discovering and drilling for oil under the Arctic may, in the future, diminish interest in trying to do so.

Law of the Sea

Traditionally, territorial claims extend up to 200 miles offshore unless a nation can assert that there is an extension of its continental shelf under an adjoining body of water. Territorial claims to underwater regions are governed by the United Nations Law of the Sea, passed in 1982 but never adopted by the United States.

The convention specifically addresses underwater mining, establishing a complex system of international regulation. Objections to this provision of the treaty have long been the main barrier to signing by the United States.

At the same time, this international system does not apply to the seabed underneath "territorial waters." Under the convention, nations have ten years from the date of signing to assert territorial claims beyond the 200-mile limit-principally based on claims of an extension of the continental shelf.

Russia has made precisely such a claim based on the Arctic seabed under the North Pole is part of a geological phenomenon known as the Lomonosov Ridge, an underwater mountain ridge that divides the Arctic Ocean bed into two great basins. The ridge stretches from Siberia to Greenland, passing across the North Pole. This ridge forms the basis of Russia's territorial claims, largely based on underwater exploration conducted after 1937 by the former Soviet Union. At the same time, Denmark has launched underwater geological studies to buttress a contention that the ridge is an extension of Greenland, thereby giving Denmark claims similar to Russia.

Russia. The most dramatic claim was put forward in August 2007 when two Russian mini-submarines were put through a hole in the Arctic icecap and planted a titanium reproduction of the Russian flag on the seabed near the North Pole. Although some observers scoffed at the event, a joint venture between the government and private interests, diplomats nevertheless evaluated it in light of what is perceived to be a new-found post-Soviet assertiveness by the government of President Vladimir Putin. After the submarine expedition, Russian foreign minister Sergey V. Lavrov defended Russia's claims, saying: "The goal of this expedition is not to stake out Russia's rights, but to prove that our shelf stretches up to the North Pole. There are concrete scientific methods for this." In September 2007, the Russian government announced that analysis of rocks retrieved by the submarine expedition provided evidence that the Lomonosov Ridge extended to the North Pole and was geologically part of a continental shelf - an extension of Russia - rather than typical of rocks found amid the ocean seabed.

Canada. One government that appeared to take the Russian claim seriously was Canada. Foreign minister Peter MacKay declared shortly after the submarine flag-planting: "This isn't the 15th century. You can't go around the world and just plant flags and say, 'We're claiming this territory.'" Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced in July that his government was building six to eight icebreakers, at a cost of $3 billion, to patrol Arctic waters in summertime. The ships patrol the waters from June to November.

Denmark. Possibly to counter Russian claims to the Lomonosov Ridge, Denmark has sent its own scientific expedition to determine whether the ridge is an extension of Greenland, which is governed by Denmark. Based on studies by the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (GEUS), Denmark has concluded that the Lomonosov Ridge runs from northern Greenland to the North Pole, and on this basis, Copenhagen has laid claim to the North Pole along with any natural gas and oil deposits that may lie beneath the ridge. The Danish geological survey continued to map the underwater ridge.

United States. The United States has claimed that there is a break in the Lomonosov Ridge that separates it from both Russia and Greenland. Nor does the United States support Canadian claims to the "Northwest Passage," which adjoins Alaska's northern border. The United States has never signed the UN Law of the Sea convention, leaving its status in international forums governing underwater territorial claims in doubt.

In a statement quoted by The New York Times in February 2007, the science advisor to President Bush, John H. Marburger III, was quoted as saying: "The North Pole is in our backyard. The U.S. has huge geopolitical interests in the Arctic region, and we need to understand the changes that are taking place there. Many other countries have direct economic interests in the Arctic, and all are served by joining forces in I.P.Y. research. Additionally the rapidly diminishing ice in the Arctic is creating new opportunities for transport and marine resource development."

In the 2020s, these territorial claims and their access to unknown amounts of natural resources are no closer to being resolved. Russia, Denmark, and Canada were waiting on UN processes to examine the territorial claims and consult with scientific experts. No answers were suspected in the near future, and though the US had not officially made a territorial claim, this cannot be ruled out in the future as well.

2020s: The Arctic as a Potential Battlezone

In the 2020s, the prospect of the Arctic Ocean as being a completely accessible global waterway, the "new Mediterranean," was increasingly becoming a reality. In addition to petroleum, many other natural resources became contestable. As Russian posturing became commonplace, China, previously not an international player in this region, was now included in a list of countries that could consider this region ripe for economic exploitation. In the 2020s, China displayed a more aggressive posture for inclusion in the governance of an internationally-accessible Arctic region.

The emerging reality of the Arctic as growing in strategic importance prompted the defense officials of many Western countries to begin upgrading the capabilities of their military forces to operate in these types of climatic conditions. As one example, in February 2024, the US Army conducted a large-scale combat exercise in Alaska designed to develop tactics and procedures for operating in this extreme environment. The United States began extending training to military forces of other countries to its training sites. Countries participating with US forces included Canada, South Korea, Mongolia, Finland, and Sweden.

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