UN backs Norway claim to Arctic seabed extension

Yahoo News 15 Apr 09;

OSLO (AFP) – Norway has won the backing of the UN in its sovereignty claim over a potentially resource rich area of seabed, including a region in the much-courted Arctic Ocean, the government said Wednesday.

Based on the evidence supplied by Norway in 2006, the UN Commission for the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS) approved Oslo's claim to the vast chunks of seabed in the Norwegian Sea, the Barents Sea and the Arctic Ocean.

"All that remains is to incorporate (the decision) into Norwegian law and then the extension of our continental shelf will be effective," said Rolf Einar Fife, director of legal affairs at the Norway's foreign ministry.

The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) stipulates that any coastal state can claim territory 200 nautical miles from their shoreline and exploit the natural resources within that zone.

Nations can also extend that limit to up to 350 nautical miles from their coast if they can provide scientific proof that the undersea continental plate is a natural extension of their territory.

The CLCS decision means Norway's continental shelf has been extended by 235,000 square kilometres (146,000 square miles), or "the equivalent of seven football pitches" for each Norwegian citizen out of a population of 4.8 million, Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere said.

The decision means Norway will benefit from exploitation rights in almost two million square kilometres in the Arctic region, Fife added.

However, Norway has yet to agree with Russia how to share one chunk of the Barents Sea in its newly extended continental shelf, the so-called Loophole, which is believed to be rich in oil and gas.

The CLCS found both had a legitimate claim to the area and said it was up to the two countries to find a sharing agreement between themselves.

The five countries bordering the Arctic Ocean -- Canada, Denmark/Greenland, Norway, Russia and the United States -- dispute the sovereignty over parts of the region, believed to contain vast amounts of untapped oil and gas reserves.

Oslo sets limit on Arctic seabed, short of North Pole
Alister Doyle, Reuters 15 Apr 09;

OSLO (Reuters) - Norway became on Wednesday the first Arctic state to agree limits to its northern seabed, stopping short of the North Pole in a regional territorial scramble driven partly by hopes of finding oil and gas.

Norway's newly defined continental shelf covers 235,000 sq kms (90,740 sq miles), or three-quarters the size of mainland Norway, Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere said.

To the north, the shelf ends in deep water 550 kms (341.8 miles) from the Pole that is claimed by both Russia and Denmark.

"Norway is the first polar nation to complete this work," Stoere told a news conference of talks with a U.N. Commission that is trying to agree limits to continental shelves of coastal states as part of a revisions to the U.N. Law of the Sea.

Agreement on shelf limits gives states the right to exploit resources on and beneath the seabed, such as oil and gas or the genes of marine organisms, officials said.

A U.S. official report last year said the Arctic contains enough oil and gas to meet current world demand for three years, or 90 billion barrels. And global warming may make the region more accessible.

Norway accepted adjustments by Commission experts to a submission Oslo made in 2006 and would write the new limits into national law, Stoere said. Other states ringing the Arctic Ocean are the United States, Russia, Canada and Denmark via Greenland.

Stoere said boundaries were set between Norway and Greenland, Iceland and the Faroes.

"In the discussion about who owns the North Pole -- it's definitely not us," he said.

RUSSIAN FLAG

Russia planted a flag on the seabed 4,261 meters (13,980 ft) beneath the Pole in 2007 in a symbolic claim. Denmark has also said that the Pole is Danish, because of a subsea ridge running north from Greenland toward Russia.

Stoere said the Norwegian shelf still has some undefined areas because of long-running disputes with Russia to the east and over how to define the area around the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard -- open to all signatories of a 1920 treaty.

Under the Law of the Sea, coastal states own the seabed beyond existing 200 nautical mile zones if it is part of a continental shelf of shallower waters.

Some shelves stretch hundreds of kms before reaching the deep ocean floor, which is owned by no state. Stoere said that Norway was not gaining territory, merely defining what was its under international law.

The Commission has set a deadline of May 13 this year for most coastal states to submit limits on their shelves. Countries such as the United States, which have not ratified the Law of the Sea, are exempt.

Elsewhwere in the world, a few nations including Australia and New Zealand have completed similar negotiations as Norway.

(Editing by Angus MacSwan)