The Long Grass at the North Pole

Though legally no more significant than any other point in the Arctic Ocean, into which State’s continental shelf the geographic North Pole will ultimately fall is politically charged for the three States involved – Canada, Denmark (Greenland) and Russia – that have submitted to the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf outer limits within which the Pole falls. The 2014 Danish submission, for an area extending beyond the equidistance line with Canada, was in that sense paradoxically helpful to Canada, as Denmark, with the northernmost land territory, is by definition closest to the Pole, which must therefore lie on its side of any such line drawn between itself and any other State; thus Denmark gave cover to Canada which needed to take a similar approach to define its continental shelf entitlement as including the North Pole. Boundaries will eventually have to be delimited, but as it likely to be 20 years before the Commission examines the last of the submissions, the three States have ample pretext to postpone this step until then, a solution likely to suit them all.