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

Ine Eriksen Søreide: nordområdene, USA og balansekunst

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The Arctic Ocean: Boundaries and Disputes

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Introduction: Climate Change and Resilient Fisheries Management

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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

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 Blue Economy in the Arctic Ocean: Governing Aquaculture in Alaska and North Norway

In the Arctic, the concept of the blue economy is increasingly dominating discussions on regional development. This entails utilising the region’s ocean-based resources in a sustainable way — both from a global and local level, as well as from an environmental and economic perspective. A crucial aspect in this development is how blue activities are regulated. The UNCLOS-regime plays a vital part in providing the mechanisms and procedures for states to manage marine resources more broadly. However, the predominant mode of governance for Arctic maritime activities will remain unilateral management by each of the coastal states. Thus, the national and local legal and political framework needs to be mapped. In this article we will explore and explain how aqua/-mariculture is governed in the United States (Alaska) and Norway (North Norway). This will be done by examining how parameters for blue economic projects are defined and determined at the international, regional, national and local governance level. Thus, our article will illustrate the complexity behind the blue economy. There is no such thing as one blue economy and no such thing as one Arctic, but it is still possible to find common ground and avenues for knowledge and best practice exchange. By this we will bring the academic and political discussions about the blue economy on the right track