Canada’s Arctic Policy: Prospects for Cooperation in a Warming World

This assessment of the Arctic is divided in to four sections. First, the true value of the region is defined in terms of its environmental, geostrategic, economic and socio-cultural importance. Such a definition stresses the need for countries involved in Arctic expeditions (notably Canada, the United States, Denmark, Russia), to manage the extraction and distribution of the region’s natural resources responsibly, sustainably, while protecting natural habitats and addressing the growing concerns of local indigenous populations. Second, the Arctic Council is presented and its effectiveness, as a regime of regional environmental cooperation with global implications, is questioned. In this respect the main obstacle is of a conceptual nature since, in its current form, the Council lacks a legallybinding institutional structure. Third, the abundance of natural resources, especially hydrocarbons, in the Arctic has attracted the attention of many, including policy-makers, scholars and researchers, among others. Considerable attention in this research is devoted to analysing the impact the exploitation of Arctic oil reserves is having. Finally, given this works argument that the Arctic Council is dangerously limited and incapable, particularly with regards to the management of natural resources, the Antarctic Treaty System (ATS), which is a legally-binding international convention (1959), is presented as a model for future reform in the Arctic region.

In 1985, Oran Young anticipated that the international community was ‘entering the age of the Arctic ... in which those concerned with international peace and security will urgently need to know much more about the region and in which policy makers in the Arctic rim states will become increasingly concerned.’ Young’s insights were extremely acute  and much international attention is being directed to the geographic  ‘North,’ where much resource wealth lies under a rapidly thinning layer  of ice; new sea-lanes are being utilised and where porous boundries have  sparked an international race for border consolidation and the extension Brian Karmazin of Economic Exclusive Zones (EEZs). Such competition is the direct result of climate change and over time, politicians, members of epistemic  communities and international publics have grown aware of its potential devastating impacts as well as the material wealth it is producing.

The full article can be read here.

Image source: Vishnu V