Kate Wing's Blog
Stake your claim
August 10, 2007
Posted by Kate Wing in Reviving the World's Oceans
There's been a fair amount of press about the recent planting of flags on the floor of the Arctic Ocean. Russian submarines planted miniature flags underneath the North Pole, an area Canada claims for its own and that no one else is willing to recognize as ownable, especially if they can't have it for themselves. While the Artic was covered with thick ice, claiming the seabed didn't seem very worthwhile but with global warming turning those ice caps to Slurpees people are scrambling for a piece of the underwater pie.
Fact is, we've dealt with how to split up the ends of the earth before, back with the signing of the Antarctic Treaty in 1961. The AT reserves entire continent for "peace and science," holding all land claims in abeyance as long as the treaty stands. When I was there, back in 1992, there were rumors that Chile and Argentina had sent pregnant women to the continent to deliver their babies so they would have 'native-born' Antarctic citizens if the treaty collapsed. I didn't see much in the way of midwifery, but there certainly was a lot of science going on, day in and day out (no real night to speak of in the summer).
Then there's the Law of the Sea, or UNCLOS III, which tried to lay out the rules for managing the high seas back in 1982. That's anywhere outside of the 200 nautical mile boundaries every country established for itself in the wake of the 1945 Truman population. UNCLOS III has specific rules for how you handle overlapping country jurisdictions and seabed mining, and since both Canada and Russia are signatory parties maybe they'll take a look at that treaty for some guidance. Not the U.S. though, as we haven't been able to get the treaty ratified. With the sea heating up in more ways than one, it sure would be nice if the Senate Foreign Relations Committee could recognize that we need a way to work with our neighbors. Or maybe we should all invest in titanium flags.
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