Regulating Arctic Shipping

1. Regulating Arctic Shipping Past, present and future role of the Arctic Council

2. Outline • How Arctic-wide inter-governmental co-operation has evolved? • What kind of shipping-related work has been done in the WG’s • Recent challenges to the work of the AC partly because of shipping (CC and EG) • Conclusions

3. 1. Arctic co-operation in brief • 1991 AEPS • Priority environmental problems • Institutional structure • Four environmental protection and assessment WG’s (CAFF, PAME, EPPR, AMAP) • Participants • 1991-1997

4. Continued • Arctic Council • Common issues • Participants and decision-making (unique position to IP’s) • New institutional structure (semi-permanent secretariat in Troms) • Two new WG’s • Ambitious assessments • 1996-

5. AEPS Mandate Participants and DM Institutional setting Commitment (legal status, funding) Deliverables Normative deliverables Arctic Council Mandate Participants and DM Institutional setting Commitment (legal status, funding) Deliverables Normative deliverables What has, in the end, changed?

6. Mid-term conclusion • From the beginning, the Arctic-wide co-operation has remained much the same – resilience to change • Performs most effectively via co-ordinating assessments (spotlighting), with connected policy recommendations • Indigenous perspective • Other normative work non-binding, technical and hard to evaluate how effective

7. 2. WG’s - 1. phase • AEPS – priority pollution problems • Climate change was seen as a secondary issue to be taken care of in global forum • WG’s commenced their work 1992-1993, and thus tried to prioritise action • 1996 PAME report – shipping part • Current and future shipping trends should be evaluated, but because of economic developments (NSR), not climate change

8. WG’s - 2. phase • Climate change work starts even if AMAP was hesitant during Clinton administration • Turns out to change the whole work in all WG’s since it was only with the ACIA work that Arctic was established as the early-warning system of climate change • And a region which is transforming radically and on ongoing basis

9. Continued • This had already from 2000 influence on the work of all WG’s and explicitly so after the release of ACIA, which provided as one of its key findings that: • ”Reduced sea ice is very likely to increase marine transport and access to resources”

10. Continued • Hence, this had the effect of having all seen shipping future in fairly different terms – as compared to the 1. stage • Connected with hydrocarbon development, it meant lot of new shipping • With the melting sea ice, it meant a totally new planning horizon for navigational routes

11. WG’s 3. phase • So, after ACIA process 1998-2004, shipping issues back in the agenda • a new set of connected assessments were commenced, among these AMSA (oil and gas), which was part of AMSP 2004 • Suddenly, shipping became one of the hot issues in the Arctic Council, starting with the assessment • AMSA a very prominent, inclusive process

12. Shipping deliverables within these 3. stages • Direct: 2004 Arctic Waters Oil Transfer Guidelines • 3-stage ”assessment of existing measures for port reception facilities for ship-generated waste and cargo residues” – overlapp with IMO work • Indirect: All the ecosystem-based governance work under AMSP, CPAN potential? • Much of EPPR work: Environmental Risk Analysis of Arctic Activities (1998) Field Guide for Oil Spill Response in Arctic Waters (1998); Circumpolar Map of Resources at Risk from Oil Spills in the Arctic (2002); Shoreline Clean-up Assessment Technique (SCAT) Manual (2004); Arctic Guide (updated annually; information on emergency systems and contact points, overview of environmental risks, and applicable agreements);

13. Mid-term conclusion • The most influential work clearly been done in the AMSA, in the assessment field, with policy recommendations • Some influence on limited issues with the technical guidance but no evaluation as to whether these have made any real-life management impacts • So, very much in line with the 1- mid-term conclusions

14. 3. Future work • Could AMSA induce any of the processes VanderZwaag identifies as possibilities in AMSA paper • IMO designation for Arctic sea areas? • IMO revision of the Polar Code? • IMO’s Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping (polar training?)? • Arctic MOU on port state control enforcement efforts? • Ballast water exchange recommendations, such as in the Antarctic? • Shows how AMSA triggers new ambitious governance questions

15. 4. New dynamics resulting from changing Arctic • Many states and political entities re-drawing their Arctic policies in strong part because of securing hydrocarbons from the region + future navigational routes • This shows in: • Coastal state co-operation – perhaps even challenging the AC and causing • Internal pressures in the Arctic Council • Even more inclusive multilateral initiatives

16. Coastal state co-operation – Ilulissat declaration May 2008 • Remain committed to law of the sea + no Arctic-specific treaty • “we intend to work together including through the [IMO] to … develop new measures to improve the safety of maritime navigation and prevent or reduce the risk of ship-based pollution in the Arctic Ocean”. • They are concerned of risk of accidents and “therefore the need to further strengthen search and rescue capabilities” • “We will work to promote safety of life at sea in the Arctic Ocean, including through bilateral and multilateral arrangements between or among relevant states”.

17. Conclusion on Coastal state co-operation • What is interesting is that these 5 seem to be identifying agenda for future co-operation • Uncertainty (SAO briefing) • Friction (SAO briefing + shadow Council) • And shipping seems to be one of the main agenda items

18. New states and entities wanting to have a (better) say in the AC • Non-Arctic states observers to the Council wanting better status • New applications to observership (EU South Korea, even Japan?) • This shows that more and more states and EU want to have their say in the AC – and one reason is the shipping agenda

19. More radical proposals • Commission work – “[d]evelop an EU Arctic policy based on the evolving geo-strategy of the Arctic region, taking into account i.a. access to resources and the opening of new trade routes” - Solana has publicly taken up a multilateral treaty • Arctic Communication (9.9.2008 Joe Borg in Ilulissat Greenland, Nordic Council of Ministers meeting).

20. Continued • EU Parliament (European Parliament resolution of 9 October 2008 on Arctic governance) – urges the Commission to pursue ATS type of solution or at a minimum core Arctic Ocean • These have been shot down by the current Arctic Council chair Norway (+ 5)

21. 5. Overall conclusion • Arctic Council has only recently energised its work on shipping • Important assessment work, otherwise marginal • Probably the recommendations from AMSA influence AC shipping agenda + the agendas of others • It remains to be seen where the incipient coastal state co-operation will challenge the AC or whether there are pressures to even some broader treaty arrangement – all of this have bearing on regulation of shipping in the Arctic