Research Of Dispute On Arctic Marine Rights And Interests

Competitions for Arctic among its neighboring countries have been last for many years due to the rich resources and the important geographic location of this region. In the 21st century, the accelerated melting of ice in Arctic because of the rapid global climate warming makes it possible to explore the resources of this region. Since August 2007, the dispute on Arctic is heated up again, Arctic coastal countries have competed vigorously in the Arctic marine rights and interests based on "United Nations Convention on Law of the Sea". Although China is far away from the Arctic region, the situation in the Arctic region will inevitably have profound impact on China as a North hemisphere country. China has to pay close attention to the dispute on marine rights and interests occurred in the northernmost of the Earth, so the research on this topic has very important practical significance.The author deems the dispute on Arctic marine rights and interests can be defined as:after the implementation of "the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea" in 1982, countries related to Arctic region pursue sovereign rights of the sea to the north of north latitude 66.5°, then the issues are generated because of the overlapping of claiming sovereign scope in the process of the division of Arctic Ocean. Currently, the focus of dispute on Arctic marine rights and interests is the division of outer continental shelf among the Arctic coastal countries. Canada, Denmark, Russia, Norway and other countries advocate having sovereignty over 200 nautical miles outer continental shelf, and their legal bases are built on Law of the Sea, which means that those countries'claiming sovereignty over the Arctic waters is basically based on "the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea".The author introduces the achievement in studying dispute on Arctic marine rights and interests obtained by domestic and foreign scholars in detail first, these studies can be divided into studies on the origin of the dispute and studies on the methods of dispute resolution, and comprehensively presents the specific contents of dispute on Arctic marine rights and interests combined with the research achievement of international laws:Besides the traditional dispute on Arctic marine rights and interests, the focus of dispute on Arctic marine rights and interests is the delimitation of continental shelf beyond 200 nautical miles and the legal basis of the dispute is "the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea". Second, the author makes a comprehensive and detailed analysis on the origin of the dispute on marine rights and interests:unequalled military strategic value of the Arctic Ocean from the geostrategic point of view, unusually rich oil and gas resources of the Arctic region from the resource reserves point of view, attractive prospect of Arctic waterways from economic point of view. Then the author summarizes the possible modes of dispute resolution and objectively analyses the feasibility of the various methods, also the author tries to present the rough outlines of main dispute resolution methods. Finally, based on the dispute develop trend, the author analyses and forecasts the prospect of the dispute on Arctic marine rights and interests by analyzing the attitudes of China, Japan, Europe Union and other national organizations to the dispute on Arctic marine rights and interests, then based on the results mentioned above, the author put forward the Arctic policy of China.