Unlocking the Arctic’s Resources Equitably: Using a Law-and-Science Approach to Fix the Beaufort Sea Boundary

Pieter H.f Bekker ,Robert Van De Poll

doi:10.1163/15718085-23441076

Abstract

Abstract This article analyses the unresolved maritime boundary situated in Arctic waters in the Beaufort Sea, between Canada and the United States through an integrated law-and-science approach incorporating new imagery technology. Resolving the Canada-United States disagreement over the Beaufort Sea boundary based on modern geo-scientific technology and the three-step delimitation methodology developed in the jurisprudence of international courts and tribunals could serve as a catalyst for the peaceful and equitable resolution of all other unresolved boundaries in the Arctic Ocean. This includes the boundaries involving Russia, which can claim more than 40 per cent of the Arctic shoreline. Given that the United States is not a party to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, this article focuses on mechanisms available to Canada and the United States under general international law and by applying ‘best law’ and ‘best science’.

Highlights

Fewer than half of the potential maritime boundary segments in the world have been agreed upon, creating uncertainty for the coastal States involved, and for investors active in the offshore extractive industries and in the fishing industry
This article has sought to demonstrate, by reference to ‘best science’ and ‘best law’, how an international court or tribunal with competent jurisdiction over the disagreement between Canada and the United States regarding their maritime boundary in Arctic waters in the Beaufort Sea would analyse the situation with a view to arriving at an adjudicated boundary that reflects an equitable result based on equitable principles
Via free access rules and principles set forth in the LOSC can be considered to reflect customary international law binding on non-parties such as the United States, and there is a substantial body of case law interpreting and applying those rules and principles that can be relied on as authoritative statements

Summary

Introduction

Fewer than half of the potential maritime boundary segments in the world have been agreed upon, creating uncertainty for the coastal States involved, and for investors active in the offshore extractive industries and in the fishing industry. As regards the standard for continental shelf delimitation, Article 6 of the 1958 Convention on the Continental Shelf (CCS) lays down the rule that ‘[i]n the absence of agreement, and unless another boundary line is justified by special circumstances, the [continental shelf] boundary is the median line, every point of which is equidistant from the nearest points of the baselines from which the breadth of the territorial sea of each state is measured’.5 This ‘equidistance/special circumstances’ rule in the CCS, which is employed for the delimitation of the territorial sea in Article 15 of the LOSC, has been assimilated with the rule of general international law requiring an ‘equitable result’ based upon equitable principles. This is followed by a summary, split into two sections, of the respective positions of Canada and the United States with regard to the Beaufort Sea

See The Law of the Sea – Baselines

Maritime Boundaries

Use of US NOAA Nautical Chartsg

Findings

Conclusion