Law of Arctic Regions

There is no overarching legal regime in the Arctic comparable to the Antarctic Treaty System. The Arctic, defined as land and marine areas north of the Arctic Circle, is governed by hundreds of global, regional, subregional, and bilateral agreements as well as by the domestic legislation of the Arctic states: Canada, Denmark via Greenland, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden, and the United States. All Arctic lands and islands, with the exception of Hans Island, claimed by Canada and Denmark, are subject to national jurisdiction. They have been acquired by effective occupation or in line with the sector principle, according to which all lands enclosed by longitude lines extending from the most easterly and westerly points of a state to the North Pole belong to that state by virtue of contiguity. The modern relevance of this principle is disputed.

The marine half of the Arctic, like other oceans and seas globally, is governed by the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). All Arctic states except the United States are party to UNCLOS. The convention specifies rights and obligations of states in a set of maritime zones. In all zones, states are bound to protect marine environment and preserve rare or fragile ecosystems.

The Arctic states fulfill their obligations in part through the Arctic Council, the main intergovernmental forum in the Arctic, which was established in 1996 to promote environmental protection and sustainable development in the region. As a soft-law organization, the Arctic Council and its six working groups produce nonbinding reports and recommendations relating to various aspects of the Arctic environment. Many of the Arctic Council's reports—for example, the 2004 Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, the 2004 Arctic Human Development Report, the 2009 Arctic Marine Shipping Assessment (AMSA), and the 2010 Arctic Biodiversity Trends—have had an impact.

The Arctic Council exists in parallel to the Barents Euro-Arctic Council, formed in 1993 by the five Scandinavian countries, Russia, and the European Commission to promote the integration of the Barents region, and the Northern Forum, an organization of subnational and regional governments of key Arctic states, China, Japan, and South Korea, which goes back to a meeting in Hokkaido, Japan, in 1974. In 2008, at a meeting in Ilulissat, Greenland, the “A5” emerged as a separate forum for the discussion of issues specific to the Arctic Ocean. That the five states with Arctic Ocean coastlines (Canada, Denmark, Norway, Russia, and the United States) have a special duty to protect the Arctic Ocean ecosystem is noted in the first pan-Arctic legal instrument, the 1973 Agreement on the Conservation of Polar Bears.