Arctic sovereignty? Cue the military
NEIL REYNOLDS
From Friday's Globe and Mail
OTTAWA — Will Canada really need to deploy Arctic warships in the Northwest Passage? Couldn't we get away with dog-sled races and Maple Leaf flags on the ice floes? Here's Natalia Loukacheva, a Russian authority on the law -- or lack of it -- in the Arctic: "To assert its sovereignty [in the Northwest Passage], Canada needs to provide a military presence all year round, in the air, in the sea, on the ground." In other words, an occasional proclamation of sovereignty isn't quite enough.
At conferences in Finland and Sweden last fall, Ms. Loukacheva cited "weaknesses" in Canada's assertion of sovereignty in the Northwest Passage and said very little international traffic need pass through the passage to establish it as international waters -- and not Canadian waters at all.
Ms. Loukacheva is now a visiting fellow at the University of Toronto's Munk Centre for International Studies. In evaluating Canada's claims in the Arctic, she notes that rival assertions of sovereignty -- to the passage itself, to the resources beneath -- could come not only from Canada's polar neighbours but from countries "beyond the eight Arctic states."
They could, indeed -- and why not? When the members of the polar family of nations meet for the reading of the Arctic's last will and testament, for the final dispersal of this vast estate, won't all the distant cousins show up, too? When Russia asserts sole sovereignty over the North Pole, and huge territory surrounding it, won't it have non-Arctic associates ready to champion its claim? China, perhaps? Iran? Indeed, won't most countries find it expedient to support the U.S. and Europe in designating the Northwest Passage as an international waterway -- especially all the countries with fishing fleets? Won't Japan assert a right to kill whales "for scientific purposes" in the Northwest Passage?
Whose law, in the end, will prevail? International law? National law? Treaty law? Aboriginal law? In the Arctic, we have multinational agreements, accords, understandings and protocols -- but no universally recognized law.
We're talking the open range on the last frontier. It is for this reason that Canada needs a permanent military presence in every part of the Arctic where we assert sovereign rights. Simply put, the absence of law by itself raises the risk of war -- as the etymology of these words attests. In old English and in old Dutch, the word "law" was the precise opposite of the word "war." And, though not acknowledged in discussions of Arctic spoils, it remains so.
More and more, the polar countries (Canada, the United States, Russia, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Iceland) will buttress their claims to Arctic territory by arbitrary action. Canada provides an example. In 2005, Canada signed an amicable protocol with Denmark jointly to manage Hans Island, the celebrated island between Ellesmere Island and Greenland. In 2006, it nevertheless unilaterally awarded exclusive rights to prospect for minerals on the island to a Canadian biologist -- symbolically, almost a declaration of war.
Hans Island is entertainment for Canadian and Danish nationalists. Since the two countries have already divvied up the surrounding seas, the only prize is the tiny island itself. Why not simply split with Denmark the square kilometre of land that rises above the sea as well as the expanse of underwater territory around it?
Though they are antagonists on Hans Island, where it doesn't matter, Canada and Denmark are allies against Russia, where it does. Russia asserts that the Lomonosov Ridge, an underwater mountain range that runs for 2,000 kilometres, is an extension of Siberia. Canada and Denmark assert that it's an extension of North America. In this contest, Canada could win territory larger than Alberta, and perhaps richer in oil. Denmark could triple in size. Russia could extend its territory to encompass the North Pole and literally connect territorially with Greenland, Canada and perhaps the United States (whose own separate Arctic claims would add 1.5 times the territory of California to the country).
In his interview the other day with Policy Options magazine, Prime Minister Stephen Harper described the assertions of Arctic sovereignty by other countries -- "by no means restricted to the Americans" -- as worrisome for Canada. "We know that there has been foreign activity in the Arctic," he said, "for some time." Russia has aggressively mapped the Arctic seabed for more than 10 years. We're only beginning.
In 1867, the Russians sold Alaska to the Americans for $7-million (U.S.). Canada won't get Arctic territory quite so cheaply now. We'll get it only by possessing it -- which, as everyone knows, is nine-tenths of all law.
nreynolds@xplornet.com
