New directions in circumpolar cooperation: Canada, the arctic environmental protection strategy, and the arctic council

Abstract

The protection of the Arctic environment has become a problem of some urgency given its importance to the maintenance of a global climate capable of sustaining life. Yet as Rob Huebert details, the treatment of this problem is made more difficult by the fact that most of the pollutants found in the Arctic originate outside it, and any action to protect it requires the cooperative efforts of eight different states with Arctic territory (including Canada) and the aboriginal groups living there. Coordinating these efforts through a variety of working groups has been the mandate, since its inception in 1990, of the Arctic Environmental Protection Strategy (AEPS), and more recently the Arctic Council. Huebert examines the development of the AEPS and its working groups, and the as yet not‐clearly‐defined relationship between AEPS and the Arctic Council created in 1996, and details the important contributions that Canada has made to both.