From Eye on the Arctic, April 4:
Russia has scored an important scientific point in its quest to declare vast swaths of the Arctic as part of its extended continental shelf in the rapidly melting northern ocean, according to Russian officials.
The United Nations Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf
has declared that the outer limits of the Russian continental shelf
submission are geologically similar to “the structure of the
continuation of the shelf and the continent of the Russian Federation,”
according to Yevgeny Kisselyov, head of the state agency in charge of
natural resources exploitation, quoted by TASS news agency.
That’s one of the key scientific requirements for any country to able
to claim an area of the world’s oceans as part of its extended
continental shelf under the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea
(UNCLOS).
The Russian claim would include about 1.2 million square kilometres
of the Arctic Ocean floor extending from the Russian Arctic coastline
towards the North Pole.
However, experts warn that despite political spinning and media hype
about the race for the Arctic riches, the scientific and diplomatic
process of delineating the extended continental shelf in the Arctic
Ocean will take years if not decades to settle....
...Michael Byers, Canada Research Chair in Global Politics and
International Law at the University of British Columbia, says it’s
important to understand that the UN Commission on the Limits of the
Continental Shelf does not define borders.
It merely rules on the scientific validity of geological data
presented to it in support of claims to extend the outer limits of a
coastal state’s continental shelf, says Byers, who has written two books
on international disputes and law in the Arctic – International Law and the Arctic and Who Owns the Arctic?
“It doesn’t give Russia that area of seabed or at least not all of it,” Byers says....
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MUCH MORE
