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Climate change has renewed the debate about shipping in the Arctic due to an expected reduction of ice in these sea lanes. Because of the Arctic slowly opening, allowing for more activity, navigational rights for ships have caught the attention of the world once again, including those of warships. Through analysing the navigational regime for warships in the Northwest and Northeast Passages, this article aims to introduce the different rules for navigation and the consequences for maritime operations in the Arctic, including the right to overflight. The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea provides navigational rights for warships and overflight in peace time operations, but the matter of which navigation rules should apply in the passages is under debate. Based on an analysis of the Convention, case law, legal theory and customary law, the article aims to shed light on different interpretations of the legal regimes of navigation in the passages and which rules should apply to warships and overflight in the future.

This report, Conflict Prevention and Security Cooperation in the Arctic Region: Frameworks for the Future, captures consensus of the Newport Arctic Scholars Initiative 2020 scholars. Building upon the 2018-2019 NASI work on the limitations of the current cooperative security fora in the Arctic region, this cohort explored existing international frameworks and assessed their abilities to ensure freedom and security in the Arctic through political-military means. NASI 2020 also examined existing frameworks to determine whether they enabled increased dialogue and maritime security cooperation in the region. The frameworks were further evaluated for their abilities to prevent and manage conflict and enhance cooperation on areas of common security and defense interests in the region. Scholars were tasked to identify new frameworks that could be useful in establishing – and maintaining – open channels of communication, preventing conflict, and enhancing cooperation on areas of common security and defense interests among nations and navies in the Arctic region. Finally, the group sought to identify practical arrangements for a future meeting or summit that could bring together states to enhance dialogue on security and cooperation in the Arctic region.