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Canadian Sovereignty in the Arctic: A Comment on The Arctic in Question*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 March 2016

Erik B. Wang
Erik B. Wang*
Affiliation:
Department of External Affairs, Ottawa
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Extract

The international lawyer sometimes reads the current literature on the Canadian Arctic with a sense of uneasiness. A wide range of writers and scholars maintain an active discourse on questions relating to what is usually called “Arctic sovereignty.” It is not that the lawyer feels he has any special wisdom or monopoly on discussions of questions of “sovereignty.” The sovereignty concept has several layers of meaning, only one of which can be said to be the special preserve of the lawyer. Public discussion in Canada is largely, and legitimately, focussed on policy questions that flow from sovereignty, from Canada's right to exercise authority, to the exclusion of that of any other state, over vast areas of arctic lands and waters. If war is too important a matter to be left to the generals, perhaps sovereignty is too important a matter to be left to the lawyers. Nevertheless, the lawyer is sometimes troubled by a tendency of non-legal commentators to blur his favourite distinctions and to question some of his most firmly held assumptions.

Type
Notes and Comments
Information
Canadian Yearbook of International Law/Annuaire canadien de droit international , Volume 14 , 1977 , pp. 307 - 316
Copyright
Copyright © The Canadian Council on International Law / Conseil Canadien de Droit International, representing the Board of Editors, Canadian Yearbook of International Law / Comité de Rédaction, Annuaire Canadien de Droit International 1977

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References

1 Foreign Policy for Canadians (Queen’s Printer, Ottawa, 1970) at 15.

2 (1928) 2 R.I.A.A. 829.

3 See for example: Cohen, M., “The Arctic and the National Interest,” (1971) 26 International Journal 52 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Green, L.C., “Canada and Arctic Sovereignty,” (1970) 48 Can. Bar Rev. 740 Google Scholar; Head, I.L., “Canadian Claims to Territorial Sovereignty in the Arctic Region,” (1963) 9 McGill L. J. 200 Google Scholar; Inch, D.W., “An Examination of Canada’s Claim to Sovereignty in the Arctic,” (1962) 1 Man. Law School J. 31 Google Scholar; Reid, R.S., “The Canadian Claim to Sovereignty over the Waters of the Arctic,” (1974) 12 Canadian Yearbook of International Law 3.Google Scholar

4 Public Notice No. 506 by the Department of State, United States Federal Register, November 4, 1976.

5 Statement by the Hon. Don Jamieson, Can. H.C. Deb. Vol. 120, November 19, 1976, at 1190.

6 See: Berlingske Aftenavis, Copenhagen, October 22, 1971, at 13.

7 (1974) Canada Treaty Series No. 9.

8 See Christian Science Monitor, October 1, 1976: “U.S.A.-Canada Split over Tiny Island?”

9 (1933) P.C.I.J., Series A/B, No. 53.

10 (1932) 26 A.J.I.L. 390.

11 Similar concerns were voiced in the press. See: The Globe and Mail, September 8, 1975 at 6: “How can Canada hope to make good its claim to the northern islands and the waters that run between them on the basis of three flights a month? The answer to this is simpbj we can’t.”

12 The Globe and Mail, July 8, 1976, at B13.

13 Part III, Article 43 of the Revised Single Negotiating Text, A/Conf.62/WP.8/Rev.1/Part III, May 6, 1976.

14 See, for example, Mostert, Noel, Supership (New York, 1974) at 331 Google Scholar: “The Canadians already have embarked upon such a unilateral course. Their Arctic Waters Pollution Prevention Act serves as a precedent which is gradually being extended to all waters; ships entering Canadian territorial seas are increasingly being forced to offer themselves and their standards of operation for examination according to Canadian rules. Nothing less than such action will make the tanker operators part with more of their profits to give their ships the sort of overall safety and seaworthiness that they should have had in the first place; and it goes without saying that if such measures strenuously enforced bring a respite for the coasts and inshore waters, then they will bring one for the deeps as well.”

15 Pharand, , Donat, , The Law of the Sea in the Arctic (Ottawa, 1973) at 44.Google Scholar

16 The Globe and Mail, August 10, 1976, at B1.