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Arctic Yearbook 2013
Bounding Nature
allowed states to claim territorial seas twelve nautical miles from shore. The AWPPA was thus an
environmental measure designed to demonstrate national sovereignty, largely to its powerful
southern neighbor. Not only did the Trudeau government take advantage of a perceived threat to
Canadian Arctic sovereignty to pass the AWPPA; during the late 1960s and early 1970s,
environmentalism was also a growing force worldwide, making Canada‘s move justified in light of
changing international norms. The US, however, was not convinced of the merit of Canada‘s
supposed environmental concerns. Washington issued a diplomatic note to protest the AWPPA,
stating that if Canada could enact pollution regulations on the high seas, other countries could
―assert the right to exercise jurisdiction for other purposes, some reasonable and some not, but
equally invalid according to international law‖ (Byers, 2009: 47).
Yet the international community ultimately supported Canada‘s view by including Article 234, the
so-called Canadian clause (Huebert, 2001), in UNCLOS. Canadian policymakers continue to claim
that it is in foreign countries‘ best interests to have well-regulated, well-patrolled shipping lanes. A
legislative summary of a failed bill to expand AWPPA‘s covered areas to extend out to 200 nautical
miles explains, ―Canada seeks recognition of its claim that the Northwest Passage is an internal
waterway in order to impose and enforce safety and marine standards that protect Canadian
interests, including those relating to the environment and Inuit. Absent Canadian regulation, the
waters would be subject to less stringent standards under international law‖ (Becklumb, 2009).
The issue of whether the NWP or NSR constitute internal waters is not a high priority for the US
given its preoccupation with other areas like the Middle East. Post-9/11, however, concern over
possible terrorist threats emanating from the north has elicited some attention from the former U.S.
Ambassador to Canada, Paul Cellucci, who observed about the NWP in 2004: ―[w]e are looking at
everything through the terrorism prism...Our top priority is to stop the terrorists. So perhaps when
this...is brought to the table again, we may have to take another look at this‖ (Byers & Lalonde,
2009: 1190). Before either the NWP or NSR can be brought to the table again, though, Canada and
Russia are trying to defend their sovereignty at sea not through bilateral negotiation with the world's
largest shipping nations or even through multilateral discussions at the Arctic Council, but rather by
adhering to international values such as environmentalism through the creation of maritime national
parks and reserves. As the waters become more trafficked, the flows of international cargo, capital,
and people seemingly weaken states‘ grips on their watery national spaces and even claims to polar
heritage and identity. Since closing their northern waterways or loudly proclaiming that they are
internal waters would arouse the ire of many of the world‘s major seafarers and economies
3
– most
of all the US – Canada and Russia are instead using environmental bounding and zoning to
demonstrate presence, ownership, sovereignty, and title.
Lancaster Sound NMCA
The bundling of the environment and sovereignty has a relatively long heritage in Canada, as the
1970 AWPPA illustrates. Whereas Trenin and Baev (2009) argue that Russia‘s ―offensive‖ approach
to the Arctic contrasts with the West‘s environmental concerns about ―polar bears,‖ Arctic
sovereignty and capacity building are actually paramount for Ottawa. In 1985, similar to the 1969