Breaking the Ice: Emerging Legal Issues in Arctic Sovereignty

Section I provides background information on Arctic geography and traces the development of early maritime law and the freedom-of-the-seas doctrine. It goes on to discuss President Truman\u27s 1945 Proclamation on the Continental Shelf and the international community\u27s response prior to implementation of UNCLOS. Section II gives an overview of the important and relevant provisions of UNCLOS, including sovereignty limits, navigation provisions, regulations of the deep seabed, and methods of dispute resolution. Section III applies UNCLOS to the two current continental shelf disputes in the Arctic and argues that UNCLOS is inadequate to resolve these disputes and any others that might arise in that region. Section IV examines the viability of alternative legal claims of title to the Arctic. Section V posits that one acceptable solution would be to model an international Arctic agreement after the Antarctic Treaty System