Suchergebnisse

The Arctic is saturated with nuclear facilities bringing both benefits for regional economic and social development and risks of nuclear and radiological accidents and concerns about radioactive wastes. There is every reason to expect the Arctic will remain a nuclearized region during the foreseeable future. This makes it important to direct attention to issues of nuclear safety and security in the region. We identify several clusters of these issues in the Arctic, including the challenges of potential nuclear accidents, the handling of spent nuclear fuel and radioactive waste, the cleanup of radiological contaminants, and concerns about nuclear security. An analysis of international conventions and voluntary codes of conduct shows that they are applicable to Arctic nuclear safety and security, but only in general terms. This suggests a need for an Arctic-specific agreement on nuclear and radiological safety, emergency preparedness and response, and cleanup of radiological contaminants. The outbreak of military hostilities in Ukraine in February 2022 has disrupted normal procedures for addressing issues of common concern in the Arctic. But the need for co-operation regarding matters like nuclear safety and security will not go away. Assuming it is possible to devise "necessary modalities" for restarting the work of the Arctic Council following the acute phase of the Ukraine crisis, an Arctic-specific agreement on nuclear safety and security could be developed under the auspices of the Arctic Council, which already has taken an interest in nuclear safety through the activities of its Working Group on Emergency Prevention, Preparedness and Response. Once such an agreement is in place, it will become important to consider the infrastructure needed to ensure that its provisions are implemented effectively.

Negotiations are ongoing to develop an international legally binding instrument (ILBI) under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) on the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction (BBNJ). If adopted, the ILBI will likely apply to parts of the Arctic Ocean where the Arctic Council has played an important role for ocean governance. This begs the question of what role the Arctic Council will play vis-à-vis a future ILBI, which is envisioned to "not undermine existing relevant legal instruments and frameworks and relevant global, regional and sectoral bodies" (UN General Assembly Resolution 72/249). Against this backdrop, this article reflects on the future relationship between the Arctic Council and the ILBI. In so doing, the article initially discusses possible meanings of the notion of not undermining and, more broadly, how the ILBI will likely determine its institutional relationship with relevant bodies for BBNJ. Based on that, the article provides a short overview of the role of the Arctic Council in Arctic Ocean governance and explores whether the Arctic Council would qualify as a relevant regional body that shall not be undermined by the future ILBI.

The Minamata Convention, which entered into force on 16 August 2017, is a global, legally binding instrument on mercury. The initiative on the Minamata Convention was mainly driven by research showing negative effects on human health and the environment in the Arctic. The Arctic Council, an intergovernmental forum promoting cooperation on Arctic issues, and its Working Group, AMAP, played an important role in the process leading up to international negotiations on the Minamata Convention. This paper elucidates the evolutionary process in which scientific knowledge, herded by an intergovernmental, regional forum, is involved and forms the basis for a legally binding agreement. The paper provides new insight on multilevel governance of the mercury issue and unravels the role that AMAP has played in this dynamic process.

The Arctic region has been the focus of considerable attention in recent years, often concerned with maritime claims and an alleged race for the region's resources. Against this narrative, the article focuses on the practices of Canada and the Russian Federation with respect to their maritime jurisdictional claims and the delimitation of maritime boundaries with their Arctic neighbours. The article provides an overview of the Arctic region and the international law of the sea with an emphasis on the baselines and maritime claims of the Arctic coastal states. Discussion then turns to the maritime boundary agreements that have been concluded in the Arctic region before overlapping claims to areas of continental shelf underlying the central part of the Arctic Ocean are appraised. The article concludes that Canada and the Russian Federation have enjoyed considerable success in resolving overlapping maritime claims and their pragmatic and innovative approaches coupled with existing regional cooperation bode well for finding peaceful solutions to Arctic Ocean governance challenges in the future.