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Russia Claims Large Chunk of North Pole
kungfoofairy writes "Russia has laid claim to over one million square kilometers of the Artic. This announcement comes on the return of a scientific expedition into the region which found that the Lomonosov Ridge connects to Russia. The area is supposed to have a reserve of 10 billion tons of natural gas and oil. 'A BBC map shows Russia's proposal; this set of maps from The New York Times illustrates the area at stake and different ways it might be divided ... The Russians have tried to advance their claim before, and were turned away by the United Nations in 2001. The new geological data is evidently meant to improve the odds for a second try. '"
They call their equivalent Ded Moroz, which literally means Grandfather Frost. And Ded Moroz does not "live on the North Pole". He "lives" in Veliky Ustiug.
D 0%9C%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%B7
See here: http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%94%D0%B5%D0%B4_%
The reason there's so much recent fighting over it is that the Arctic Ocean becomes more valuable after the "whole thing melts" and not less valuable. It will be easier to access the oil, and there are shipping rights involved.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
We're talking about an economic boon that will last decades. Of course people are going to fight over it. Any (fictional) "oil running out, world in panic" scenario would only make it all the more valuable.
Your argument is like saying, "Well, there's a gigantic diamond buried under the fence between me and my neighbor. I'll just let them have it because diamonds are going to run out anyways."
From a more practical standpoint, Russia is grasping at straws. They went from superpower to "not that impressive except for all the nukes." Their GDP is, what, a bit over a trillion dollars per year compared to our 11 trillion? Yet, they still have the pride of a superpower. Just like how if America fell from the top of the world stage, we'd still see ourselves as deserving that status, they too tend to see this as just a setback. Natural resource exploitation seems a good way to bring in money to their economy that could help resurrect their backwards industrial base. It also has geopolitical significance; "take my side or I shut off the taps" makes a nice threat, even when not spoken.
Of course, the resource you're threatening over better *actually* be a big deal. Let's not forget Sudan's threat to devastate the world by stopping sales of acacia gum. I love the terrifying wording:
What's more, the good and peaceful leaders of Sudan were prepared to retaliate massively: They would cut off shipments of the emulsifier gum arabic, thereby depriving the world of cola.
"I want you to know that the gum arabic which runs all the soft drinks all over the world, including the United States, mainly 80 percent is imported from my country," the ambassador said after raising a bottle of Coca-Cola.
A reporter asked if Sudan was threatening to "stop the export of gum arabic and bring down the Western world."
"I can stop that gum arabic and all of us will have lost this," Khartoum Karl warned anew, beckoning to the Coke bottle. "But I don't want to go that way."
As diplomatic threats go, that one gets high points for creativity: Try to stop the killings in Darfur, and we'll take away your Coca-Cola.
"99 dead duelists of Dios on the wall. 99 dead duelists of Dios! Take one's ring, pass it around..."
The BBC map is most used as it shows what the Russians want to claim - the NYT map shows the situation as it currently exists. (Note that the grey hued area marked "Russian claimed territory" on the BBC map is absent from the NYT map - and lies considerably beyond the borders marked on both maps.) The two maps differ considerably.
I've learned that they're worthless, so I don't read AC comments anymore.
"Most of the world's major maritime powers agree with the US position that this is an international strait. If anything, it's Canada here that is acting unilaterally."
It's debatable because it is an "international" strait that is entirely within one country, through a large island archipelago, and it's a very long passage within the country's territorial waters (in the legal sense). To qualify as an "international strait" it must be useful for navigation in a regular commercial and military traffic sense (actually, not merely potentially) and have experienced a sufficient number of transits in that capacity. It is a historical precident that has been tested for other straits in the world in international courts, and by those precidents the Northwest Passage would probably fail currently. Despite its famous name, the Northwest Passage never has been a major shipping lane like most of the other areas treated as "international straights". This is why Canadians got so upset in the 1980s when the U.S. crossed the passage without permission, because it was effectively trying to reverse a historical precident. Were Canada not to protest, then, over time, with sufficient transits of this type, yes, it would eventually establish it as an international strait. It's fine to disagree with the claim, but quite another to actively erode it.
It isn't the same story or law on land, but it is kind of like regularly crossing your neighbor's lawn and then trying to make the case after a few years that public access to what is on the other side is implied by the neighbor's lack of protest. You aren't claiming the land is yours, but you are claiming a right of passage where it didn't (arguably) exist previously. And it really hurts when the neighbor is your best friend already.
Even as ordinary territorial waters, there is still the right of "innocent passage" for vessels, so it isn't as if ships couldn't go through there anymore if Canada's claims were recognized, but in those circumstances there is more legal jurisdiction by the nation whose territorial waters are traversed, and more restrictions on what ships are allowed to do during their passage. We don't want oil tankers (for example) cruising through the Northwest Passage sometime in the future and potentially making a mess of the place with little or no ability to set standards to minimize the risks. The Arctic environment is extremely fragile, and the Inuit are especially concerned about threats to it.
There is a 1988 agreement that U.S. icebreaker voyages would occur with the consent of the Canadian government. That's really all it takes. The agreement is neutral in terms of any effect on the claim one way or the other (the U.S. did not acknowledge Canada's claim, but Canada's claim doesn't become any weaker by the occurrence of unpermitted passage either).
"Although the OP is correct; the Canadians who depend on the US for their defense do not have the means to defend their claim even if they wanted to. That's reality for you I guess."
Saying your neighbor is weak doesn't really excuse you from treating them politely.