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Arctic Regionalism in Theory & Practice
(WWF). Time and again, these players – in line with several scholars and the wider public –
question
the coastal states‘ reliance on national sovereignty due to expected limitations this would pose on
regulatory prospects with regard to sustainable development and ecological preservation and instead
ponder ―whether it is time to cut the Gordian knot of claims to polar sovereignty for the sake of the
common good‖ to be governed under a global commons regime (Jabour and Weber, 2008: 27).
Greenpeace
, for instance, aggressively campaigns against (plans for) oil drilling by
Royal Dutch Shell
in
the Arctic and seeks wide public attention for its ‗Save the Arctic‘ web project
3
, which was launched
in mid-2012.
Arguably, to make
a fourth point on Arctic regionalism, marine areas do not simply establish a
regional territory for the states that surround it,
but as a resource basin also have a ―powerful
centripetal force‖ (Alexander 1974: 154) with global reach. In reaction to interests that non-Arctic
states and entities such as the EU have articulated towards the region, the coastal states set sovereign
rights as the ultimate criteria for regional membership and
therewith restricted
legitimate actorness
in Arctic affairs. While in the case of land-space regionalism, states in relative geographical proximity
and with similar interests may join or leave regional initiatives and organisations, marine-space
regions, by contrast, are determined by accessibility of their members to common waters. According
to Lewis Alexander, these states sum up to
―a ‗marine-oriented‘ region because of their common
concern for the sea‘s protection and development‖ (Alexander, 1977: 88). Consistent with this view,
the so-called
Arctic Five
(Denmark/Greenland, Norway, Canada, the USA and Russia) in a 2008
separatist move
even segregated
their sub-Arctic partners Finland, Sweden and Iceland – though
founding members of the Arctic Council – from the special ministerial meeting in Ilulissat, while at
the same time highlighting their exclusive stewardship role in protecting the Arctic ecosystem
(Declaration of Ilulissat, 2008). Also, the
Nuuk observer rules agreed
upon in the 2011 Arctic
Council ministerial meeting for the first time specify the modalities for actors applying for observer
status, of which one is to ―recognize Arctic States‘ sovereignty, sovereign rights and jurisdiction in
the Arctic‖ (SAO 2011).
With that in mind, we could – as shown in Figure 3 – refer to all non-Arctic stakeholders and the
group of Arctic Council observers as the sphere of
Arctic marine-oriented globalism
, while
marine-oriented
regionalism
includes all states that hold sovereign or jurisdictional rights over parts of the Arctic‘s
functionally defined territory as stated further above. This latter group is akin to the Arctic Council
members (
Arctic Eight
), but also involves the indigenous ―Permanent Participants‖ and their
representative organisations.
If, finally, regional boundaries are indeterminate and change along functional indicators, sovereignty
is contested and coastal states attempt to define who the legitimate players in Arctic governance are,
the region is a product of social meaning and practice and can ergo be changed through discourse
and politics (Hurrell, 1995: 38-39). This holds true also for the Arctic. In his book
The Social
Construction of the Ocean
, Philip Steinberg