NPAC 2014 Proceedings_final

List of Figures

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Contributors

Raymond V. Arnaudo, Senior Scholar, Center for Science Diplomacy, American Association for the Advancement of Science (U.S.)

Michael Aumond, Deputy Minister, Finance and Secretary of the Financial Management Board, Government of Northwest Territories (Canada)

Jiayu Bai, Assistant Director/Associate Professor, School of Law and Political Science, Ocean University of China (China)

Lawson W. Brigham, Distinguished Professor, Geography and Arctic Policy, University of Alaska Fairbanks (U.S.)

Sheila Watt-Cloutier, Independent Speaker, Author and Advocate and former Chair of the Inuit Circumpolar Council (Canada)

Heather A. Conley, Director and Senior Fellow, Europe Program, Center for Strategic and International Studies (U.S.)

Robert W. Corell, Principal, Global Environment and Technology Foundation and its Center for Energy and Climate Solutions (U.S.)

Bernard W. Funston, President, Northern Canada Consulting (Canada)

Peiqing Guo, Professor, School of Law and Political Science, Ocean University of China (China)

Kuk Jin Kang, Principal Research Scientist, Advanced Ship Research Division, Korea Research Institute of Ships & Ocean Engineering (Korea)

Toshiyuki Kano, Director, Shipping Plan Technology R&D Center, National Maritime Research Institute (Japan)

Jong Deog Kim, Research Fellow, Korea Maritime Institute (Korea)

Nam Yll Kim, Managing Director, Senior Research Fellow, Energy Policy Research Group, Korea Energy Economics Institute (Korea)

Sung Jin Kim, Invited Professor, Seoul National University and Former Minister of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries, Korea (Korea)

Yoon Hyung Kim, Senior Fellow, East-West Center and Emeritus Professor, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies (Korea)

Valeriy A. Kryukov, Deputy Director, Institute of Economics and Industrial Engineering, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk (Russia)

Sung Woo Lee, Research Fellow, Korea Maritime Institute (Korea) Nancy D. Lewis, Director, Research Program, East-West Center (U.S.)

Takahiro Majima, Head, Logistics Research Group, Navigation & Logistics

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Engineering Department, National Maritime Research Institute (Japan)

Nancy G. Maynard, Emeritus Scientist, NASA, and Visiting Scientist, Cooperative Institute for Marine & Atmospheric Studies, University of Miami (U.S.)

Denise L. Michels, Mayor, City of Nome, Alaska and Transportation Director, Kawerak, Inc. (U.S.)

Tatiana Mitrova, Head, Oil & Gas Department, Energy Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Russia)

Arild Moe, Deputy Director and Senior Research Fellow, Fridtjof Nansen Institute (Norway)

Mikko Niini, Senior Management Advisor, Aker Arctic Technology Inc. (Finland)

Fujio Ohnishi, Assistant Professor, College of International Relations, Nihon University (Japan)

Lars-Otto Reiersen, Executive Secretary, Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (Norway)

Svein Vigeland Rottem, Senior Research Fellow, Fridtjof Nansen Institute (Norway)

Eiji Sakai, Manager, Maritime Affairs Division, Ocean Policy Research Foundation (Japan)

Ryuichi Shibasaki, Chief Researcher and Head, Policy Research Office, Center for International Port Policy, The Overseas Coastal Area Development Institute of Japan (Japan)

Hyoung Chul Shin, Head, Department of International Cooperation, Korea Polar Research Institute (Korea)

Ellen Inga Turi, Post-doctoral Researcher, Department of Geography and Economic History, Umeå University (Sweden)

David L. VanderZwaag, Professor and Canada Research Chair in Ocean Law & Governance, Marine & Environmental Law Institute, Dalhousie University in Halifax (Canada)

Alexander N. Vylegzhanin, Professor, Doctor of Law, Moscow State Institute of International Relations (Russia)

Hua Xu, Associate Researcher, China Waterborne Transport Research Institute (China)

Jian Yang, Vice President, Shanghai Institutes for International Studies (China)

Oran R. Young, Professor Emeritus, Bren School of Environmental Science and Management, University of California, Santa Barbara (U.S.)

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Preface

The sense of a few years ago that the development of Arctic resources would take the form of a giant, unstoppable “gold rush” has abated. Serious constraints affecting the use of the Northern Sea Route (NSR) for commercial shipping have become evident. Many now expect that commercial use of the NSR will mainly take the form of destination shipping, rather than through traffic, for the foreseeable future.

Furthermore, North America’s shale gas revolution has dramatically altered the economic attractiveness of Arctic hydrocarbons. As a result, the development of once-promising projects (e.g., the supergiant Shtokman gas field in the Barents Sea) has been delayed indefinitely. This has serious implications for Russia, whose economic redevelopment is tightly coupled to the exploitation of Arctic resources. In some parts of the Arctic, interest in mining (e.g., lead, nickel, iron ore, and uranium) may outstrip the development of oil and gas reserves, which now seem less attractive than they did even three or four years ago.

For the most part, this is good news. It provides a little more leeway to think about innovative ways to address governance needs now arising in the Arctic. But it is important to treat this development as an opportunity to establish mechanisms designed to ensure that the Arctic’s resources are developed in a responsible manner; it is not a basis for complacency. For this reason, we will devote the North Pacific Arctic Conference (NPAC) 2014 to an examination of international cooperation in the Arctic in an effort to identify and evaluate the effectiveness of innovative measures that will contribute to maintaining the Arctic as a zone of peace and promoting sustainable development.

Cooperation can take many forms. Intergovernmental arrangements, perhaps the most obvious form of cooperation, can range from bilateral initiatives (such as Norwegian/Russian cooperation in managing the fisheries and potential energy resources of the Barents Sea) through regional actions (e.g., the work of the Arctic Council on search and rescue and oil spills) to multilateral steps (for example, the development of the Polar Code for commercial shipping in the Arctic under the auspices of the International Maritime Organization). In some cases, there are differences among states regarding the proper forums for addressing particular issues. A current example involves the issue of how to deal with the possibility

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that fisheries of commercial significance could develop in the Arctic Basin during the next several decades. The five Arctic coastal states have taken the initiative regarding this issue; they are considering the merits of a proposed agreement that would impose a moratorium on commercial fishing, at least until more is known about the status of potential fisheries in the Arctic and their capacity to sustain a commercial harvest. But this approach is controversial. Some major environmental groups (e.g., the Pew Charitable Trusts and the Ocean Conservancy) have expressed strong support for this approach, while others (including the remaining members of the Arctic Council, some indigenous peoples’ organizations, and some distant-water fishing nations) have been more skeptical about it.

There are important questions regarding the identity of the participants in cooperative measures relating to emerging Arctic issues. We tend to think first of states and intergovernmental agreements regarding matters of mutual interest. Arrangements of this sort are common in the Arctic, though some of the most important ones (such as the Arctic Council) are informal arrangements based on agreements (e.g., the ministerial declaration establishing the council) that do not involve legally binding obligations. A particularly interesting aspect of cooperation in the Arctic, however, is the prominent role of various non-state or semi-autonomous actors that are associated formally or informally with national governments.

The alliance among Gazprom, Statoil, and Total regarding the development of the Shtokman gas field, or the alliance between Rosneft and ExxonMobil regarding exploration for oil in the Kara Sea have taken the form of coalitions of private corporations, though the links between Gazprom and Rosneft on the one hand and the government of the Russian Federation on the other are strong. Others, like the partnership among Novatek, Total, and the China National Petroleum Corporation to establish a liquefaction facility on the Yamal Peninsula in northwestern Siberia, include enterprises that are stateowned but able to operate with a high degree of autonomy.

Other forms of cooperation that have emerged in the Arctic are less conventional in nature but potentially important not only for their ability to contribute to peace and sustainability in the Arctic, but also as experiments that may prove interesting in other settings. A distinctive feature of the Arctic Council is the engagement of indigenous peoples’ organizations as Permanent Participants able to play a role in all the activities of the council.

A development in 2013 of particular importance from the perspective of NPAC was the acceptance by the Arctic Council of five non-Arctic Asian

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states (China, India, Japan, Korea, and Singapore) as council observers. They join seven European countries as members of the corps of Arctic Council observers. Recent developments, including climate change and economic globalization, have strengthened the links between the Arctic region and the global system and brought the region to the attention of political and economic decision makers worldwide. The members of the council, the eight Arctic states, now recognize that it is impossible to address a range of emerging Arctic issues without finding a means of engaging major non-Arctic states. As a result, all parties concerned are interested in exploring the extent to which it is possible to develop informal but effective practices through which the council can become an effective forum not only for addressing issues of concern to the eight Arctic states, but also for dealing with matters (e.g., the effects of black carbon, environmental issues associated with energy development, and commercial shipping) that require cooperation on the part of key non-Arctic states as well as the Arctic states themselves.

The 2014 NPAC, jointly organized by the Korea Maritime Institute and the East-West Center, was held in Honolulu, Hawaii, to discuss these issues under the theme “International Cooperation in a Changing Arctic.”

This volume contains the papers presented at the Honolulu conference, covering patterns of Arctic investment, national Arctic strategies, Arctic state/non-Arctic state engagement, innovations applicable to the Arctic, indigenous responses to Arctic development, and opportunities for international cooperation in a changing Arctic.

On publishing this volume, we would like to thank Dr. Oran R. Young, professor emeritus at the University of California, Santa Barbara, Dr. Jong Deog Kim, research fellow at the Korea Maritime Institute, and Dr. Yoon Hyung Kim, senior fellow at the East-West Center and professor emeritus at the Hankuk University of Foreign Studies for coordinating the conference and preparing this volume for publication. We are grateful to Dr. Nancy Lewis at the East-West Center for her support of the NPAC program. We also wish to thank the paper writers, commentators, and others involved in contributing to the success of this conference. Our sincere gratitude goes to June Kuramoto of the East-West Center for her expert management of the conference logistics.

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1.Introduction and Overview

Yoon Hyung Kim, Oran R. Young,

and Jong Deog Kim

BACKGROUND

The Arctic continues to experience rapid change. But the changes now occurring in the region are producing a more complex situation than the one envisioned just a few years ago by those who predicted that increased accessibility resulting from the melting of sea ice would ignite a scramble for control of the region’s resources and the emergence of a new “great game” in the Arctic. This more complex situation calls for innovative thinking that can provide the basis for increasingly sophisticated forms of cooperation at the international and transnational levels. Both states and non-state actors can play constructive roles in the effort to maintain the Arctic as a zone of peace and prosperity and to develop the region’s resources in a sustainable manner as links between the region and the global system continue to grow. But realizing this potential will require a willingness to break the conceptual grip of old antagonisms and to embrace new approaches to problem solving on the part of all parties concerned.

Sea ice in the Arctic Basin reached an all-time low in the late summer of 2012, but it bounced back in 2013, trapping a number of vessels that had ventured into the Northwest Passage expecting to be able to make ice-free transits. Serious constraints affecting the use of the Northern Sea Route (NSR) for commercial shipping have become evident. Many now expect that commercial use of the NSR will take the form mainly of destinational shipping, rather than through traffic, for the foreseeable future. Ship traffic in the NSR during 2014 was well below the level reached in 2013. More generally, the growing impact of climate change in the Arctic is intensifying pressure to relocate coastal communities (e.g., Kivalina in northwest Alaska), shortening the season for the use of ice roads critical to the extraction of raw materials, and threatening the integrity of infrastructure (such as airfields, pipelines, and commercial buildings) located in areas underlain by permafrost. None of this runs counter to the fact that Arctic resources are becoming more accessible. But these conditions do emphasize

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