International Law and Arctic Shipping

The Arctic Ocean is gradually experiencing the effects of globalisation as a result of climate change, ice melt, and the emergence of a range of shipping activity in the sub-Arctic, along the Arctic coast, and within the central Arctic Ocean. While international law has been prominent in any consideration to date of the shipping issues associated with the Northern Sea Route (Northeast Passage) and the Northwest Passage, the development of trans-Arctic shipping and associated new shipping routes throughout various parts of the Arctic have the potential to raise a series of new Arctic international legal issues which have never before considered in an Arctic context. This paper will assess those issues with reference to how the navigational regime under the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea applies in the Arctic and how the freedom of navigation exercised through international straits and the high seas may in an Arctic setting need to be balanced against the legitimate rights and interests of the Arctic littoral states, including indigenous peoples. Solutions to these issues consistent with contemporary international law will be considered, including whether there may be a need to develop distinctive responses to some of these questions.