The European Union – An Arctic Actor?

-Since launching its first Arctic communiqué in 2008, the European Union has strived to be accepted as a legitimate Arctic actor. Yet the EU's symbolic quest towards achieving observer status in the Arctic Council has proved disproportionately long and difficult. Despite starting out with lofty ideals about its Arctic engagement, the EU has been forced to re-adjust and modify its approach to the region. This chapter aims to explain why the EU has engaged in the Arctic in the first place and how it has gone about doing so, while also elaborating on the different contentious issues that has come about as a consequence of this engagement. To do this one must first conceptualise the EU as a foreign policy actor, as a tool for understanding the development of an EU Arctic policy

Drawing Lines at Sea: Australia’s Five Decades of Maritime Boundary Delimitation

Boundaries in the ocean are man-made constructs of importance to everything from oil and gas production, to fisheries and environmental protection. How do states delineate such ownership and rights? These are the core questions examined in this article, which studies Australia’s maritime boundary agreements, starting with Indonesia in 1971 and ending with Timor-Leste in 2019. In addition to depicting and documenting the main drivers and impediments to these agreements whenever Australia has had to negotiate with a third country, it examines Australia’s approach to boundary-making at sea more generally. Drawing on international law and political science, this article shows why we need understand the interplay between security politics, legal considerations and domestic interests in order to understand what motivates states to settle their maritime disputes.Drawing Lines at Sea: Australia’s Five Decades of Maritime Boundary DelimitationacceptedVersio

The Arctic Ocean: Boundaries and Disputes

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Ine Eriksen Søreide: nordområdene, USA og balansekunst

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High North, Low Politics—Maritime Cooperation with Russia in the Arctic

Maritime activity is increasing in the Arctic. So is bilateral cooperation across maritime borders between coast guards intent on protecting natural resources, saving lives and assisting navigation. As tensions rose between Russia and the West in 2014, due to the conflict in Ukraine, coast guard cooperation in the Bering and Barents Seas was unaffected. Why? How did the respective bilateral cooperative structures between Norway/the United States and Russia develop, and why were they deemed “too vital to cancel” in the aftermath of events in Ukraine? This article examines how the respective states have developed cooperative regimes since the 1970s, and subsequently how these regimes have come to constitute the backbone of bilateral management of these vast and invaluable maritime domains. The argument made is that the specific character of coast guards and their role as stewards of the sea separate them from other military structures, making bilateral cooperation not only valuable, but indispensable, to the management of the states’ maritime sovereignty.(Published: May 2016)Citation: A. Østhagen. “High North, Low Politics—Maritime Cooperation with Russia in the Arctic.” Arctic Review on Law and Politics, Vol. 7, No. 1, 2016, pp. 83–100. http://dx.doi.org/10.17585/arctic.v7.25

Introduction: Climate Change and Resilient Fisheries Management

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Managing Conflict at Sea: The Case of Norway and Russia in the Svalbard Zone

In 1977, Norway established a maritime Fisheries Protection Zone (FPZ) around Svalbard, yet avoided claiming an outright Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). A dispute with Russia over the status of the Zone arose. In the late 1990s, Norwegian enforcement of fisheries regulations became stricter, as fish stocks were in decline. This led the Norwegian Coast Guard to attempt to arrest Russian fishing vessels on several occasions, resulting in reactions from Russian fishermen, as well as officials in Murmansk and Moscow. In 1998, 2001, 2005, and 2011 specifically, incidents had the potential to escalate beyond a fisheries issue. Today, an event in the maritime zone is of concern to both Norwegian and Russian authorities. Given the potential volatility of events in the FPZ, how do Norway and Russia manage to avoid escalation in the case of a crisis? Whereas previous scholarly work has explicitly focused on the legal status of Svalbard and its maritime zones, or looked at how Norway manages fisheries in cooperation with Russia, this article brings forth new knowledge by examining the specific incidents in the Zone and placing these in the wider context of conflict theory. Limited to the Norwegian perceptions of the dispute only, this article adds to our understanding of this specific issue of Arctic conflict management and governance. Based on several years of data collection through interviews, the argument put forth is that Norwegian and Russian cooperation is based on both mutual interests and the socializing effects of cooperative mechanisms, which in turn are key to avoid escalation in crisis-scenarios. In sum, we need to recognise how a combination of economic interests and the effects of socialisation have enabled Norway and Russia to keep conflict levels low, when incidents at sea have occurred

Canada og Norge i nordområdene og NATO

Denne publikasjonen utgis som del av forskningsprogrammet Security and Defence in Northern Europe (SNE).Denne IFS Insighten gir en oversikt over det canadiske perspektivet på sentrale spørsmål innenfor utenriks- og sikkerhetspolitikk og sammenligner med norske syn

The Svalbard Fisheries Protection Zone: How Russia and Norway Manage an Arctic Dispute

Svalbard and the maritime zone around this Arctic archipelago are central to Norway–Russia rela-tions. Since 1977, a dispute has concerned Norway’s right to exercise jurisdiction over fisheries. What are Russian positions on Norwegian jurisdiction enforcement in the Fisheries Protection Zone (FPZ)? How have perceptions and reactions evolved since the turn of the millennium? Has the deterioration in the bilateral relationship post-2014 sharpened the dispute in the FPZ, and has the risk of conflict increased? We find that 2014 does not appear to be a watershed with respect to relations in the FPZ around Svalbard. After the dramatic arrest of a Russian trawler in 2005, the Russian central authorities switched from protest to relatively conciliatory dialogue — with a marked exception in 2011 related to Russian domestic discord surrounding the 2010 Barents Sea maritime boundary agreement. After 2011, incidents in the FPZ have been handled without further escalation, but the situation is underpinned by various factors that might change. Russia’s policies in the FPZ have been a balancing act: always stressing its official position and insisting that there are limitations to how much Norwegian enforcement can be accepted, while also ensuring that the enforcement regime survives