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The Arctic Council’s Ukraine challenge

Can the Ukrainian crisis affect cooperation between Arctic Council countries?

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The Ottawa Declaration that established the Arctic Council in 1996 clearly defined the scope of its mission. Military security, for example, was left out. So it would be reasonable to assume that the council will continue to focus on issues of pollution, sustainable development, climate change and the future local Arctic communities, as it has in its first 15 years.  

The main question facing the Artic Council is how much international tensions over Ukraine will affect its work. The Syrian crisis has shown that US and Russian foreign ministers use their Arctic Council meetings as an opportunity to discuss contentious issues. However, there have been no changes in the council’s upcoming plans.

During the peak of political confrontation and propaganda over Syria, it suddenly became very important for the powers involved to have a negotiating platform unrelated to the Middle East that promised consensus on other issues, such as search-and-rescue operations in Arctic seas. They also needed a venue that would allow them to continue informal talks on hotly contested international issues.

Thus, the Arctic Council came to play a role that, while outside the scope of its mandate, was very important at a time when these countries, so capable of coming to terms on Arctic issues, found themselves at loggerheads over Syria. A gulf of mistrust and misunderstanding divided them. As the crisis in Ukraine continues to unfold, the United States and Russia will achieve more if they view the Arctic Council as a mechanism of mutual understanding rather than a means to carry over global conflicts to the Arctic.

There is cause to hope that this is possible given the positive history of international relations in the Arctic in the 25 years since the end of the Cold War and the existence of regional institutions of international cooperation, of which the council is one.  

Expansion prospects
The Arctic Council can’t help but reflect the economic and political realities that have taken shape in the world over the past few decades. One of the most pronounced trends has been the growing global role of China and India and the countries of the Asia-Pacific Region in general, and so naturally they are observers in the council. In fact, it is dangerous when the growing economic influence of these countries is not accompanied by a growing institutional presence in international political agencies (UN, UNESCO and WHO to name a few); it can lead to global instability and conflicts. Therefore, their presence in the Arctic Council will inevitably grow and their participation should be used to benefit the Arctic and the polar countries. This idea will dominate the new stage in the council’s history that began at the May 2013 meeting in Kiruna where the first Asian countries received observer status.

The situation with the European Union is more complicated. Observer status for Europe would contradict the council’s fundamental rule excluding major intergovernmental associations. Admitting the EU would create an uncomfortable precedent – why not include OECD, ASEAN and other intergovernmental associations? It is great that the EU spends millions of euros on Arctic studies every year, but its members Finland and Sweden and its close partner Norway are quite capable of representing the EU’s interests in the Arctic Council. It would make little sense to admit them to the council again as part of the EU.

Plans of council members
Each council member clearly outlines their plans in the region in their respective national Arctic strategies. There is a clear pattern to these strategies: small unitary polar states want to intensify international cooperation in the Arctic, while large polar federations – Canada, the United States and Russia – stress domestic issues, the protection or expansion of national sovereignty in the region, and bilateral rather than multilateral cooperation in the Arctic (the words “big” and “small” here refer to geographical size and economic power). As such, their interests, strategies, and short- and long-term plans differ substantially. The council balances out these intrinsic differences between unitary and federative countries.

I believe new international institutions (norms, rules and agencies) will be established for the polar zone. Regulations will have the character of formal norms and soft laws (agreements). The development of soft laws to manage Arctic navigation is absolutely justified and inevitable in light of the rapid rate of climate change, which demands that some international norms be revised.

It is important to understand Russia’s exclusive place in the Arctic. This is not meant to denigrate any country; rather, Russia’s special role was bestowed by God and geography. Russia occupies half of the Arctic. To paraphrase a well-known poem: We say the Arctic and mean Russia; we say Russia and mean the Arctic. So all attempts to block Russia’s membership in new polar institutions would be counterproductive for other Arctic nations, confining their activities to the narrower problems of Northern Europe, Iceland or Alaska.

The EU is already one of the key players in Arctic research. It plays an amazing role in advancing knowledge for the entire Arctic community of nations and the whole of the human race. These efforts deserves extensive support, including the granting of research rights in the Russian Arctic. But the EU’s research work does not make it an Arctic intergovernmental organization. Almost no EU countries are located in the Arctic.

So let’s draw a clear dividing line. Scientific research is one thing; the right to participate in governing the Arctic is something altogether different. In the Antarctic, running a polar research station automatically gives a nation the right to stake a claim to the territory it occupies, but this does not work in the Arctic.

Russian cooperation with council members
In the nearly two decades since the Arctic Council was formed, Russia has found it easier to reach agreements when the council was chaired by Canada, Iceland or Sweden, but more difficult under the United States. This too is a function of geography. The US is geographically “challenged” in the Arctic: it has the largest economy among the Arctic states, but only a small window onto the region – the Bering and Beaufort seas. This explains the American commitment to free navigation in the Arctic, including Russia’s Northern Sea Route, which is a source of concern to other Arctic countries. Therefore, we can hardly expect any new and interesting ideas for the Arctic Council during the US chairmanship.

Every member country wants to use its chairmanship to make a mark with a major initiative. The council’s permanent members are engaged in constructive competition. As chair, Iceland instituted a report on the human dimension of socioeconomic development in the Arctic (the first was issued in 2004 and the second will be published in 2014), while Canada has suggested establishing a permanent business forum for Arctic entrepreneurs. Regrettably, the United States is more egoistic and less cooperative in the Arctic.

Russia’s military presence in the Arctic
In the 1990s, an economically ailing Russia paid almost no attention to the Arctic. Paradoxically, this quintessentially northern country – made even more northern by the Soviet Union’s collapse – neglected its northern identity. Russia’s attention was occupied by the problems of the Caucasus, former Soviet republics and the task of building the foundations of a new kind of Russian state.

Russia has since come to appreciate its unbreakable bond to the North and the Arctic; in fact, this is what makes Russia unique in the world. As such, we need to understand Russia’s desire to step up its presence in the Arctic in an historical context. The Soviet Union maintained a military presence in the Arctic. And now, after a period of focusing on critical domestic problems, Russia has finally returned to the Arctic as a strong and secure state and an influential player in the world economy and world politics. Other countries should not fear Russia’s return, but rather view it as an absolutely natural strategic move.

Regarding Russia’s military presence in the Arctic, again it is important to understand the historical context so as to avoid the pitfalls of intellectual ignorance. The Soviet Union maintained a military presence in the Arctic during the Cold War confrontation between the super powers. Russia’s current military presence is entirely different in nature. Its primary purpose now is to support the national tasks of developing Russia’s Arctic land and continental shelf. Military and civilian activities in the Arctic are more integrated than ever now that the permanent demonstration of military power is no longer a priority.

How the Ukrainian crisis may affect the UN Commission’s decision on Russia’s application to expand its continental shelf in the Arctic (to be submitted in the fall of 2014)
Although these issues seem to be absolutely unrelated, geopolitically there is a risk that they could be linked. Russia should be ready for unjustified delays in the process for “ethical” reasons that are usually disregarded as useless. However, the fact remains that historically Russia has every moral and legal reason to claim these vast swathes of continental shelf.

In Soviet textbooks the Arctic was divided into sectors. I remember how on Soviet maps the Arctic borders drawn from the country’s easternmost and westernmost points (Kaliningrad’s Vistula Spit in the west and the Cape Dezhnev in the east) extended upwards, almost coinciding at the North Pole. Everything inside them – islands and bodies of water – was recognized as national territory by Soviet law.

In the 1990s, the new Russia signed the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea as the successor of the USSR. Under this convention Russia had to prove its rights to the vast Arctic territory that the Soviet Union claimed without second thought. Russia spent considerable effort and millions of rubles to validate its territorial claims.

I tell my students that no country has ever paid so much to prove its ownership of land as Russia paid to research these sections of the Arctic continental shelf. Polar expeditions on a number of research vessels gathered evidence for several years. It would be most unfair for the UN Commission on the Continental Shelf to reject the application of a country that has spent so much money gathering convincing evidence and that has voluntarily broken with its legal tradition to tailor its laws to international norms. Let’s hope that the commission will be fair. Revenge is bad in personal relationships and even more so in intergovernmental relationships.

The Arctic Council is not a cure-all for all Arctic problems. However, it is a unique institution in modern history that makes decisions by consensus. Every country must agree. In this sense it embodies the spirit of local Arctic communities with their focus on mutual assistance and cooperation rather than competition. Notions of relentless economic competition that originated in lower latitudes have not taken root in the Arctic. Mutual assistance rather than the survival of the fittest has been the foundation of human existence in the Arctic for centuries.