Research On The Legal Issues Of Environmental Protection In Arctic Waters

Climate warming has greatly affected environment of arctic region.Increased sea surface temperature leads to the gradual ablation of sea ice that covers the Arctic sea for a long time,causing the reduction of the area and seasonal restrictions on the navigation of ships,as the consequence of which,huge trade gains and resource benefits come into being.However,large-scale human activities such as resource exploration and commercial navigation also make the risk of marine pollution increasingly prominent.The Arctic region is covered by ice for a long time,and its atmospheric temperature is lower than that of ordinary oceans,thus affecting the degradation and cleaning ability of seawater itself.Once ship pollution occurs,,marine collisions,ship spills,and other incidents that produce marine pollution will pose a serious threat to the fragile Arctic water environment.In recent years,with the increasing status of the Arctic region in international politics,the protection of the Arctic waters by the international community has become increasingly important.The environmental protection problem in the Arctic region is no longer a regional issue,and it has gradually become a global issue.This article is divided into five chapters.The first chapter puts forward the research background and significance of this paper,and introduces the domestic and international research background of this issue by introducing the research status of Arctic waters environmental protection issues at home and abroad.The second chapter introduces the basic situation of environmental problems in the Arctic.At the same time,the causes of environmental problems in Arctic waters were analyzed from different perspectives.In addition,the definition of the scope of this study and the description of several basic legal theories related to this article are described.The third chapter sort out the status of the environmental protection legislation of the Arctic waters,analyze the treaty regulations concerning the environmental protection of the Arctic waters,the national regulatory system of the eight countries around the Arctic,and the regulations of relevant international organizations.On the basis of the third chapter,Chapter IV proposes the current legal problems in the Arctic water environment and makes detailed explanations.It is proposed that the current Arctic environmental protection law adopts a combination of soft and hard governance that lacks binding force and can easily lead to legal conflicts.In addition,there are also problems such as lack of specific implementing agencies and fixed funding sources.Chapter V undertakes Chapter IV.After analyzing and comparing the domestic law model,the "UN Oceans Law" Convention model,the Arctic Convention model,and the soft law model,this paper believes that although there is a lack of enforcement of the soft law model,but it is the best choice based on the current Arctic special realistic environment.With regard to resolving the legal conflicts existing in the environmental protection of the Arctic waters,we can use the traditional treaty interpretation rules to ease existing treaty conflicts,strengthen the cooperation between international organizations and countries in the Arctic region,and change the value orientation of national legislation.To avoid future foreseeable legal conflicts,a complete and coordinated legal system for the protection of the Arctic waters will be established in the future to fundamentally resolve the issues of legal conflicts.The Arctic Council has the function of overall coordination of Arctic affairs.It is the most authoritative organization for handling Arctic affairs and it is realistically feasible to use it as an implementing agency for the Arctic environmental protection laws.As for the sources of funding for Arctic waters protection,we can try to construct an ecological insurance system and an ecological fund system.At the same time,we can use financial institutions to carry out ecological loans to provide more abundant funding channels for the Arctic water environment protection.