PRIF-Report No. 113 From Meltdown to Showdown? Challenges and options for governance in the Arctic Christoph Humrich/Klaus Dieter Wolf Translation: Matthew Harris Peace Research Institute Frankfurt (PRIF) 2012 Correspondence to: PRIF (HSFK) Baseler Straße 27-31 60329 Frankfurt am Main Germany Telephone: +49(0)69 95 91 04-0 Fax: +49(0)69 55 84 81 E-mail:
[email protected] [email protected] Internet: www.prif.org ISBN: 978-3-942532-41-9 Euro 10,– Summary Over the past few years the Arctic has become the object of intense political interest. Three interacting developments created this interest: first, climate change which is caus- ing the polar ice cap to melt is creating new opportunities and risks. While huge areas open up to resource development, this seems at the same time to also cause new geo- strategic confrontation. The second development is economic change. In Russia, Green- land, Norway and Alaska, economic well-being is highly dependent upon the exploitation of natural resources. Because on the one hand export revenues are rising for natural re- sources and on the other already developed sources further south have transgressed their exploitation peak, the economies of these countries drive them up North into the high Arctic. Thirdly, there has been legal change. The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) provides a legal framework for exploiting continental shelf re- sources. The Arctic states can and must assert their claims now. Contrary to all alarmist pronouncements, however, the process of delimiting the boundaries of the continental shelf is proceeding in a relatively orderly manner .