New Map of Carved Up Arctic

[jason]

The SD post: New Map of Carved Up Arctic talks about how the International Boundaries Research Unit - Durham University has this funky new map of the far north. The Toronto Star article says:

The new map gives Canada a vast swath of disputed territory inside the Arctic Circle, including the now navigable Northwest Passage, but suggests Russia and Denmark may have a greater claim to the actual North Pole.

Drawn from a blend of emerging geological data and international law, the map offers a fresh understanding of the overlapping claims to an area thought to contain one-fifth of the world’s undiscovered and recoverable oil and gas resources, according to experts at the International Boundaries Research Unit at England’s Durham University….
“My guess is that the Canadian government has produced a similar map, but they cannot publish it as this is politically sensitive stuff.

“What we’ve done is stick our neck above the parapet by plotting the distances ourselves and releasing it publicly.”

One international law expert told the Toronto Star the area assigned to Canada may strike some Canadians as overshadowed by the sheer extent of Russian territorial claims, particular in the area defined by the submerged Lomonosov Ridge, which at least three countries suggest may be an extension of their respective continental shelves.

“Nothing here is likely to surprise the government in Ottawa,” said Douglas Guilfoyle, an expert in the law of the sea at University College London.

But, he added, ordinary Canadians may be surprised how large Russia’s claim is – and that Canada’s is far less than might be expected.

“One reason is that this map doesn’t show the traditional extent of the polar ice shelf off of Canada’s North, which some would suggest gives Canada a special status. But ice melts – and it seems to be doing so more rapidly today.”

Pratt said ice had no bearing on the IBRU map because “it has no bearing on the law of the sea.

“I can sympathize on a personal level with the concept of ice as a land bridge, but from a legal and technical point of view there is no provision for it,” he told the Star.

“Canada would have to argue for special circumstance in saying that the ice is intrinsically connected to the land.

“It would be unusual because it involves arguing that ice is land rather than sea.”