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Peary’s boys claiming finders-keepers on the North Pole. http://freedy89. files.wordpress.com/2009/02/peary5.jpg in the early history of Arctic exploration was the discovery of the Northern Passage – the legendary connection between the Pacific and the Atlantic, around North America or Eurasia – which would constitute a possible attractive trade route. The initial driving force for finding an alternate trade route to the Orient was the capture of Constantinople by the Turks in 1453, which allowed them to control the Strait of Bosphorus and to interrupt trade between Europe and the Orient. 6 The first known expeditions for a new trade route to the Orient began with Columbus in 1492, followed by John Cabot, who, in 1497, landed much farther north than Columbus, probably in Newfoundland, Giovanni da Verrazzano, who looked for a northwest passage around the recently explored land and, in 1524, sailed as far north as Maine or Nova Scotia, and Jacques Cartier, who discovered the St. Lawrence River in 1535. 7 The journey further north and the passage through the Arctic Islands of Canada proved to be more demanding and the early explorers had to contend with ice, Arctic weather, and scurvy, among other obstacles. The results of these early expeditions by European explorers and the subsequent ones – among them those by William Barentz, Martin Frobisher, William Baffin, Henry Hudson, and John Davis – were largely disappointing and caused the initial wave of interest to wane. 8 These expeditions played a great role, however, in adding to the Western Civilization’s initial knowledge of the Arctic. In the 19 th century, several new explorers took up the challenge of the Arctic – primarily British naval officers John Franklin, F. W. Beechey, John Ross, James Ross, W. E. Parry, P. W. Dease, Thomas Simpson, George Back, and John Rae. 9 In 1845, one of the most famous expeditions ever to attempt the Northwest Passage, by Sir John Franklin, disappeared and gave rise to more than 40 searching parties that scoured the Arctic Islands for several decades vainly looking for Franklin and his crew. 10 This drawback cooled Great Britain’s ambition to be the leader in the race for the Northern Passage and made most explorers shift their focus to the North Pole. These expeditions moved the ‘discovery line’ further north and explored and mapped Greenland, together with some smaller Arctic islands. The Northwest Passage between the Bering Strait, which separates Russia and Alaska, and Baffin Bay on the Atlantic Ocean was eventually conquered by Roald Amundsen in 1903-1906, 25 years after the Northeast Passage had been first navigated by Nils A. E. Nordenskjöld. 11 In 1909, the race to the North Pole was arguably won by Robert E. Peary; however, his achievement was undermined by Frederic A. Cook’s subsequent announcement that he had reached the Pole a year before. There is still a considerable controversy as to whether either man actually reached the Pole, given the primitive navigation techniques of that period. In subsequent years, several field expeditions were sent out by British, Soviet, Norwegian, Danish, Harvard WorldMUN 2012 Disarmament and International Security 4
Canadian and American organizations, but their objectives focused mainly on gathering meteorological, hydrological and magnetic data and establishing environmental and radio stations. During World War II, interest in studying the Arctic conditions was further fuelled by the need to transport supplies, and this interest continued also after the war had ended. Scientific work in the Arctic region increased greatly after 1945, with the intensified use of new methods of exploration. After 1947, the United States started carrying out routine weather-reporting flights over the Arctic Ocean and used icebreakers to conduct oceanographic work in the Beaufort Sea. The first American and Soviet weather stations were established in the 1950s, and by the end of the decade there were several stations on ice islands, which were occupied and maintained until they drifted into a region where they ceased to be of interest to the scientists. 12 In regards to the Northwest Passage, in 1954 the first crossing by a deep-draught vessel was made by HMCS Labrador, a Canadian naval icebreaker, and in 1969 the Manhattan, one of the world’s largest commercial ships of that time, smashed through more than 1,000 km of ice between Baffin Bay and Point Barrow to assess the commercial feasibility of the passage. 13 Up to this day, however, the Northwest Passage has never been used as a regular commercial route. Presently, the discovery phase of the exploration of the Arctic region is over. Today, there remain no unexplored areas, as scientific research yielded reasonably accurate maps and technological progress has made this once elusive area increasingly accessible. Nowadays, commercial airlines can fly across the North Pole, and the Arctic regions have become the focus of research concerning global warming and climate change. Early Territorial Claims As a result of scientific exploration of the Arctic, it became increasingly attractive for many nations to claim their rights to territorial sovereignty over some portions of the region. From the very beginning, exploration of the Arctic often combined scientific, geopolitical, and even commercial purposes with the pursuit of national prestige. Therefore, arctic exploration was undertaken not only by the states bordering on the Arctic Ocean: the United States, the Soviet Union/Russia, Canada, Denmark-Greenland and Norway, but also by actors such as Germany, the United Kingdom and Poland. 14 However, territorial claims were mainly made by the former group of states – mainly the United States, the Soviet Union/Russia and Canada. As late as in the first decades of the 20th century, there was no international statute in place that would clearly regulate boundaries for all states in the Arctic region, but there seemed to be no urgent necessity to create one at that time. All countries of the Arctic rim traditionally accepted the sector principle, a version of the doctrine of contiguity, and facilely based their territorial claims on this agreement. According to the sector principle, the northern coastlines of the countries adjacent to the Arctic Circle were to indicate the northern boundaries of their respective sectors in the Arctic Ocean, while longitudinal parallels extending from their eastern and western borders bounded these sectors from the other two sides 15 . In the past, international law stated that national claims of sovereignty over particular areas in the Arctic Ocean were to be recognized only if accompanied by physical occupation. Initially, there were two competing theories regarding national sovereignty in the Arctic: (1) that no nation could achieve sovereignty over the Arctic, termed ‘res nullius’ and (2) that every nation shared an undivided sovereignty over this region, called ‘res communes.’ According to current international law, sovereignty is considered to be a derivative of government control and of notoriety over new territory. Consequently, many claims of sovereignty over some portions of the Arctic region that were supported by existing exercise of the government functions became more plausible. On the other hand, claims resting solely on territorial justifications such as the sector principle were denied legal force by many nations, including the United States, which purchased Alaska from Russia in 1867, thus reaffirming its presence in the region. Extended sea sovereignty conflicts and disputes in the Arctic between the United States, Canada, the Soviet Union/Russia, Denmark-Greenland, Norway, and Iceland started in the 1920s. The beginning of the wave of claims was marked by Norway’s acquisition of the Svalbard Archipelago, which was recognized by the Spitsbergen Treaty and which gave this country a large Arctic area. The littoral states of Canada and the Soviet Union argued that their coastal reach should be extended northwards, repeating the argument that was made by claimants to the newly explored Antarctica. Canada’s claim involved extending their national boundaries up to the Pole, which would then cover the area between longitudes 60°W and 141°W and include the islands between the northern coast of Canada and the Pole. Russia followed suit, and established a claim to the area between the northern coasts of both its European and Asiatic parts and the North Pole. The Russian sector was to be bounded by two lines: from Murmansk to the North Pole (35°E) and from Chukchi Peninsula to the North Harvard WorldMUN 2012 Disarmament and International Security 5
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