{"title":"U.S.-China Arctic Cooperation in a New Era of Great Power Competition: Opportunities and Challenges","authors":"Yuanyuan Ren","doi":"10.1163/22116427_014010006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22116427_014010006","url":null,"abstract":"This article examines the current opportunities for and constraints on the U.S.-China cooperation in the Arctic. It argues that, despite ongoing tensions between the United States and China on many issues, there are numerous concrete opportunities for the two countries to develop dialogue and cooperation concerning the Arctic and Arctic Peoples. To substantiate this argument and enrich the existing literature on U.S.-China relations in the Arctic, this article focuses on three issue areas where the two powers could develop trust and cooperation: (1) the freedom of navigation in the Arctic Ocean, (2) the implementation of new science-based Arctic treaties, and (3) Alaska-China economic relations. Given the current state of U.S.-China relations, this article advocates a bottom-to-top approach based on the concept and practice of science diplomacy to facilitate the development of U.S.-China Arctic cooperation.","PeriodicalId":202575,"journal":{"name":"The Yearbook of Polar Law Online","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-02-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134295348","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The 2018 Judgment by the European Court of Justice on Antarctic MPAS and Its Possible Significance to the Antarctic Treaty System","authors":"Gustavo Ramírez Buchheister","doi":"10.1163/22116427_014010009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22116427_014010009","url":null,"abstract":"The CJEU’s decision in the Antarctic Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) case offered an opportunity to explore the area where EU Law and the Antarctic Treaty System overlap: in the forum of the CAMLR Commission. From the point of view of EU Law, CCAMLR is a so-called ‘mixed agreement’, meaning that its scope includes areas where both the European Union and its Member States are competent. This article explains how the Court resolved the question of the joint representation of a common standpoint in a forum where the Union has no autonomous position, and then goes on to explore the significance that the decision could have for the Antarctic Treaty System.","PeriodicalId":202575,"journal":{"name":"The Yearbook of Polar Law Online","volume":"28 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-02-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128145681","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Place and Nature. Essays in Russian Environmental History, edited by David Moon, Nicolas B. Breyfogle, Alexandra Bekasova","authors":"Susanna Pirnes","doi":"10.1163/22116427_013010018","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22116427_013010018","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":202575,"journal":{"name":"The Yearbook of Polar Law Online","volume":"144 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-04-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132968009","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Co-management as a Foundation of Arctic Exceptionalism: Strengthening the Bonds between the Indigenous and Westphalian Worlds","authors":"B. Zellen","doi":"10.1163/22116427_013010005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22116427_013010005","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Successful collaboration between the Indigenous peoples and the sovereign states of Arctic North America has helped to stabilize the Arctic region, fostering meaningful Indigenous participation in the governance of their homeland through the introduction of new institutions of self-governance at the municipal, tribal and territorial levels, and successful diplomatic collaborations at the international level through the Arctic Council. Undergirding each of these pillars of Indigenous participation in Arctic governance is a mutuality of commitment to the principle of co-management of the Arctic that has united Indigenous peoples and the state across Arctic North America. Co-management has become so widely and reciprocally embraced by tribal peoples and states alike that it now provides a stable foundation bridging the Indigenous, transnational world with the Westphalian world of states and statecraft. This stability and the reciprocal and over time increasingly balanced relationship between sovereign states and Indigenous stakeholders has yielded a widely recognized spirit of international collaboration often referred to as Arctic exceptionalism. Along the way, co-management has transformed into both a mechanism of, and powerful paradigm for, trans-Arctic diplomacy that fosters not only greater domestic unity between tribe and state, but between states as well, catapulting mechanisms designed for domestic resource management to the international stage. Arctic exceptionalism has come under recent strain from the renewal of great power competition in the Arctic. As Arctic competition between states rises, the multitude of co-management systems and the multi-level, inter-governmental and inter-organizational relationships they have nurtured across the region can help to neutralize new threats from intensifying inter-state tensions.","PeriodicalId":202575,"journal":{"name":"The Yearbook of Polar Law Online","volume":"37 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-04-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130509715","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Opportunities for Protecting Biological Diversity in the Arctic Ocean","authors":"Gabriela Argüello","doi":"10.1163/22116427_013010007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22116427_013010007","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000The paper analyses the opportunities to establish marine protected areas (MPAs) beyond national jurisdiction in the Arctic Ocean. For this, the author scrutinises the legal processes allowing UNCLOS to adapt to current and future ocean governance challenges concerning biological diversity and the limits of such adaptability. Some significant limitations are found in areas beyond national jurisdiction (ABNJ) in the Arctic Ocean. The low political commitment of Arctic States to cooperate in fora such the Arctic Council leaves the ABNJ of the Arctic Ocean in a very precarious situation. With extensive areas of the seabed potentially falling under national jurisdiction and the water column remaining as ‘high seas,’ there is a possibility that Arctic cooperation will be eroded.","PeriodicalId":202575,"journal":{"name":"The Yearbook of Polar Law Online","volume":"17 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-04-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116720600","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Colonisation at the Poles: A Story of Ineffective Occupation","authors":"R. Johnstone","doi":"10.1163/22116427_013010006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22116427_013010006","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This paper examines the legal concept of occupation of territory and its historic application to the Polar regions, to disclose the fallacies at the heart of the colonial projects at both Poles. It also considers how the increasing recognition of non-use value disrupts positivist accounts of occupation.\u0000The colonisation of populated lands was justified by European theories of property that insisted that effective occupation required both a psychological and a physical element. The psychological element of occupation requires the sovereign to engage in a legal fiction that it controls the land and exercises dominion over it but this conceit is not shared by Arctic Indigenous Peoples. The physical element of occupation according to the positivist account requires an owner or sovereign to transform the land in some physical manner. The self-serving European legal theories construed the Indigenous relationship with land as a non-relationship and declared it retrospectively terra nullius. According to their own laws, the colonisers declared their own sovereign authority over Indigenous territories, notwithstanding the existing civilisations.\u0000However, in the Polar regions, the colonisers themselves did very little in the way of physical occupation or transformation of the vast majority of the lands that they claimed. Colonisers demonstrated occupation through the naming of places, mapping, taking resources, building basic structures for shelter, and applying laws over their own people. But Indigenous Peoples had long been doing all those things in the Arctic. 20th century courts accepted that in territories remote from the colonising claimant with little or no population, the degree of physical occupation and exercise of jurisdiction could be very limited. However, they refused to consider the much longer and more extensive use and management by Indigenous Peoples.\u0000In the Antarctic, the territorial claims of the seven claimant states do not pivot on any real physical occupation or transformation of the land at all. This would have been impossible on any scale of significance, given the size and challenging climate of the continent at the time of European discovery. Today, the principles that govern the Antarctic continent favour non-use and a minimisation of impacts. At both Poles, justifications for the exercise of jurisdiction are increasingly based on promises to protect wilderness by minimising human impacts. Sovereignty is demonstrated through non-occupation in a complete reversal of the classical legal theory.","PeriodicalId":202575,"journal":{"name":"The Yearbook of Polar Law Online","volume":"35 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-04-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121900977","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Law of the Sea in the Age of Building an Appropriate Arctic Ocean Governance Addressing Climate Change Issues","authors":"Vonintsoa Rafaly","doi":"10.1163/22116427_013010012","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22116427_013010012","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Polar regions stand out due to the presence of rare and sensitive ecosystems, their vulnerability to climate change and other environmental threats and their importance for Indigenous communities, at the regional level, and for humankind as a whole. The Arctic region, is experiencing unexpected issues as a result of climate change effects. The law of the sea, as a prerequisite for ocean governance, constitutes a solid foundation for establishing an appropriate governance in this region to tackle current and future climate change issues. Therefore, the practice of the law of the sea in the region will be explored and the consideration of Arctic region’s specificities on this practice will be analysed.","PeriodicalId":202575,"journal":{"name":"The Yearbook of Polar Law Online","volume":"42 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-04-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123415381","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Between Economic Nationalism and Globalism: Evaluating Russia’s Recent Regulations on Arctic Shipping","authors":"A. Sergunin","doi":"10.1163/22116427_013010013","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22116427_013010013","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This study examines how recent changes in Russia’s legal regulations affected shipping via the Northern Sea Route. The paper discusses whether these regulations are helpful for making the NSR a popular international transport corridor or, on the contrary, may lead to its isolation and retaining its status of Russia’s national seaway? This study also reviews Russian legal and practical measures to implement the International Maritime Organization’s Polar Code. The author concludes that despite some legal inconsistencies, the lack of a proper infrastructure and residual environmental problems, the NSR will remain an important priority for the Russian future strategy in the Arctic region. The NSR is viewed by Moscow as an effective instrument to develop the Russian Arctic both domestically and internationally. However, Moscow still faces a dilemma: On the one hand, it wants to keep its control over the NSR and support Russian shipbuilding industry and shipping companies. On the other hand, the Kremlin is willing to open up this passage for international cooperation and integrate it to the global transportation system.","PeriodicalId":202575,"journal":{"name":"The Yearbook of Polar Law Online","volume":"33 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-04-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133744337","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Law-Science Interface in the Arctic: Science and the Law of the Sea","authors":"H. Woker","doi":"10.1163/22116427_013010017","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22116427_013010017","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Law and science are both crucial for effective and legitimate decision-making in the Arctic. Yet their interaction is not always successful. This contribution discusses the various ways in which the law of the sea interacts with science in the geographical context of the Arctic, by looking at the references to science in the text of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the sea; the influence of scientific developments and/or new scientific knowledge on the interpretation and application of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea; and the way in which the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea regulates science. It concludes by analysing the interactions between law and science in the Arctic in light of Luhmann’s systems theory, by comparing the two bodies of knowledge to autopoietic, operationally closed, but cognitively open, systems.","PeriodicalId":202575,"journal":{"name":"The Yearbook of Polar Law Online","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-04-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126329853","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"From Victims to Contributors: A Human Rights Approach to Climate Change for the Indigenous Peoples of the Arctic","authors":"Yuko Osakada","doi":"10.1163/22116427_013010003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22116427_013010003","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000A human rights approach to climate change, which has been claimed by the Indigenous peoples, consisted of procedural and substantive demands. Their procedural demands have mostly been realized in establishing the Local Communities and Indigenous Peoples Platform and the LCIP Platform Facilitative Working Group (FWG), where they can participate on equal footing with state parties. It could be argued that the LCIP Platform and the FWG have empowered Indigenous peoples who have hitherto been perceived as mere victims of climate change by making them contributors who provide their traditional knowledge related to addressing and responding to climate change. By contrast, their substantive demands have been imperfectly accepted. This might be improved in the Platform’s future activities. In doing so, the Inuit leader has pointed out that it is important to distinguish between local communities and Indigenous peoples in the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) processes. This article will argue its feasibility depends on Indigenous peoples’ further efforts to convince state parties to accept such distinctions based on the applicability of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.","PeriodicalId":202575,"journal":{"name":"The Yearbook of Polar Law Online","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-04-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122594476","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}