The Northwest Passage in transit

International Journal

Volumn 54, Issue 2, 1999, Pages 189-202

  Griffiths, Franklyn ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0040909364     PISSN: 00207020     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/002070209905400201     Document Type: Article

References (20)

1. 'Agreement Between the Government of the United States of America and the Government of Canada on Arctic Cooperation,' 11 January 1988, International Legal Materials 28(January 1989), 142-3.
2. Personal communications with Howard Strauss, Legal Bureau, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, 12 June 1998; and with Peter Timonin, Prairie and Northern Region, Transport Canada, 11 January 1999.
3. The Nunavut Land Claims Agreement of 1993 affirms Inuit 'rights to participate in decision-making concerning the use, management and conservation of land, water and resources, including the offshore.' Canada. Statutes of Canada, 1993, vol. II (Ottawa: Queen's Printer 1993), chap 29, 1259. Offshore interests in hunting, fishing, planning, and impact review are to be secured through a variety of joint boards on which Nunavut and federal government personnel will have parity representation. Personal communication with John Merritt, Senior Advisor, Nunavut Secretariat, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, Ottawa, 15 July 1998.
4. If there is any great interest in Arctic shipping in Canada these days, it is in the Arctic bridge proposal which would see Russian bulk exports move from the Barents Sea area or the Baltic to the port of Churchill, Manitoba, on Hudson Bay. The effect would be to link western portions of Russia's Northern Sea route to central North America. Negotiations were held in 1998 for the purchase of fertilizer from an Agrokhim facility on the Kola Peninsula, to be delivered for use in western Canada beginning possibly with the 1999 shipping season. The Arctic Bridge venture is currently on hold because a global shipping glut makes Arctic marine transportation uneconomic. Personal communication with Christopher Alexander, Russia and East Europe Division, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, 6 July 1998 and 8 February 1999.
5. Donald M. McRae, 'Arctic sovereignty: loss by dereliction?' Northern Perspectives 22(winter 1994-5), 4. See also the Canadian government statement of 10 September 1985: 'Canada is an Arctic nation ... the Arctic is not only a part of Canada, it is a part of Canadian greatness. The policy of the Government is to preserve that greatness undiminished. Canada's sovereignty in the Arctic is indivisible.' Reproduced in Franklyn Griffiths, ed, Politics of the Northwest Passage (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press 1987), 269-73.
6. Donald M. McRae, 'Arctic sovereignty: loss by dereliction?' Northern Perspectives 22(winter 1994-5), 4. See also the Canadian government statement of 10 September 1985: 'Canada is an Arctic nation ... the Arctic is not only a part of Canada, it is a part of Canadian greatness. The policy of the Government is to preserve that greatness undiminished. Canada's sovereignty in the Arctic is indivisible.' Reproduced in Franklyn Griffiths, ed, Politics of the Northwest Passage (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press 1987), 269-73.
7. McRae, 'Arctic sovereignty,' 9 . Also, Franklyn Griffiths, 'Canada as a sovereign state,' Canadian Foreign Policy 2(spring 1994), esp. 28 and 43. See, however, the more subtle view offered by McRae in Canada and the Circumpolar World: Meeting the Challenges of Cooperation into the Twenty-First Century. Report of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade (Ottawa April 1997), 81-2.
8. McRae, 'Arctic sovereignty,' 9 . Also, Franklyn Griffiths, 'Canada as a sovereign state,' Canadian Foreign Policy 2(spring 1994), esp. 28 and 43. See, however, the more subtle view offered by McRae in Canada and the Circumpolar World: Meeting the Challenges of Cooperation into the Twenty-First Century. Report of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade (Ottawa April 1997), 81-2.
9. McRae, 'Arctic sovereignty,' 9 . Also, Franklyn Griffiths, 'Canada as a sovereign state,' Canadian Foreign Policy 2(spring 1994), esp. 28 and 43. See, however, the more subtle view offered by McRae in Canada and the Circumpolar World: Meeting the Challenges of Cooperation into the Twenty-First Century. Report of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade (Ottawa April 1997), 81-2.
10. David Collenette, Minister of National Defence, said in response to a question seeking confirmation of 'a novel diplomatic arrangement' to which he had referred on 13 June 1995 and under which the United States, it was said, informed Canada when its nuclear submarines travelled under Canada's arctic ice: 'Mr Speaker, we have a number of bilateral agreements with the United States. One of them provides for the movement of U.S. vessels in Canadian waters upon agreement of such a manoeuvre. When the U.S. requires such permission, they let us know that they intend to use our water and we acquiese.' Canada. House of Commons, Debates, vol. 133, no. 225, 6 November 1995 (Ottawa: Queen's Printer for Canada 1995), 16245.
11. Government of Canada Response to the Report of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade 'Canada and the Circumpolar World: Meeting the Challenges of Cooperation into the Twenty-first Century' (Ottawa: Government of Canada May 1998), 29.
12. In 1995, the United States navy dedicated a Sturgeon-class SSN, before decommissioning, for Arctic research under the SCICEX programme, which is to terminate in 1999. SSNS enter and exit the Arctic Ocean only via Fram Strait and Bering Strait. Unless otherwise invited, they operate only in waters beyond the 200-mile exclusive economic zone (EEZ) of the Arctic states, as is required by the law of the sea. Although only United States nationals are on board, these SSNS have conducted research or performed experiments for scientists in foreign countries. In 1998, the Bedford Institute of Oceanography in Halifax proposed that a SCICEX submarine come into the Canadian Arctic EEZ to within perhaps 30 miles of the archipelago, to conduct studies of the Canadian Basin and continental slope there. Personal communications with Gary Brass, Arctic Research Commission, Washington, DC, 18 May 1998, and John N. Smith, Bedford Institute, 24 June 1998. The proposal was to come from the Canadian government and was the subject of interdepartmental discussion in Ottawa. It had not been acted upon as of January 1999. Personal communications with John N. Smith, 12 January 1999, and Howard Strauss, 13 January 199. The Canadian Coast Guard, for its part, has been planning a joint research project in which the newest United States Arctic research platform, the Coast Guard icebreaker Healy, would come into the archipelago to assist in establishing its capabilities and in conducting hull studies, when sea trials begin in 1999. Personal communication with Peter Timonin, 11 January 1999.
13. Susan Strange, The Retreat of the State: The Diffusion of Power in the World Economy (New York: Cambridge University Press 1996).
14. John Gerard Ruggie, 'Territoriality at millennium's end,' in Ruggie, Constructing the World Polity: Essays on International Institutionalization (London: Routledge 1998), 172-97.
15. For the 1970 Canadian Act and annex 4 of 1991, see International Legal Materials 9(May 1970), 543-52, and 30(November 1991), 1483-6. am indebted to E. F. Roots, Science Advisor Emeritus, Environment Canada, for some of the points made here. As it happened, an Arctic-Antarctic comparison was not the subject of ministerial discussion at Iqaluit. For background on the polar navigation code, see Franklyn Griffiths, 'Environment and security in Arctic waters: a Canadian perspective,' in Willy Østreng, ed, National Security and International Environmental Cooperation in the Arctic: The Case of the Northern Sea Route (Dordrecht: Kulwer Academic 1999), 129-31.
16. For the 1970 Canadian Act and annex 4 of 1991, see International Legal Materials 9(May 1970), 543-52, and 30(November 1991), 1483-6. am indebted to E. F. Roots, Science Advisor Emeritus, Environment Canada, for some of the points made here. As it happened, an Arctic-Antarctic comparison was not the subject of ministerial discussion at Iqaluit. For background on the polar navigation code, see Franklyn Griffiths, 'Environment and security in Arctic waters: a Canadian perspective,' in Willy Østreng, ed, National Security and International Environmental Cooperation in the Arctic: The Case of the Northern Sea Route (Dordrecht: Kulwer Academic 1999), 129-31.
17. For the 1970 Canadian Act and annex 4 of 1991, see International Legal Materials 9(May 1970), 543-52, and 30(November 1991), 1483-6. am indebted to E. F. Roots, Science Advisor Emeritus, Environment Canada, for some of the points made here. As it happened, an Arctic-Antarctic comparison was not the subject of ministerial discussion at Iqaluit. For background on the polar navigation code, see Franklyn Griffiths, 'Environment and security in Arctic waters: a Canadian perspective,' in Willy Østreng, ed, National Security and International Environmental Cooperation in the Arctic: The Case of the Northern Sea Route (Dordrecht: Kulwer Academic 1999), 129-31.
18. See the interesting discussion in Ian Angus, A Border Within: National Identity, Cultural Plurality, and Wilderness (Montreal a Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press 1997).
19. The most recent instance of failure to follow through is the Polar 8 icebreaker: a commitment to acquire was made in the wake of the Polar Sea transit; within a few years the whole project was a dead letter. See Rob Huebert, 'Polar vision or tunnel vision: the making of Canadian Arctic waters policy,' Marine Policy 19(no 4 1995), 343-63.
20. Franklyn Griffiths, 'Environment in the U.S. security debate: the case of the missing Arctic waters,' Environmental Change and Security Project, Report 3, Woodrow Wilson Center, Washington DC, 1997, esp. 22.