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Sunday 05.02.2012

Hans Island dispute masks common interests

Canada and Denmark are also collaborating on a major scientific mapping project, which will help decide who owns Hans Island and- much more importantly- who can lay claim to undersea resources in the surrounding Arctic Ocean region. In their bid to claim the North Pole, the two nations share a common enemy. That's because Russia wants to divide the Arctic Ocean into sectors, splitting sovereignty over the pole into several territories.

The recent debate over who owns Hans Island, the tiny island located between Ellesmere Island and Greenland, is a war of words: the future opening of a consulate office in Iqaluit shows the two nations are more neighbours than enemies.

"In order to emphasize the relationship and facilitate even closer co-operation in the future, Denmark is in the final phase of opening an honourary consulate in Iqaluit, making Denmark the first country to be represented in Nunavut," says Poul E. D. Kristensen, the Danish Ambassador to Canada.

Canada and Denmark are also collaborating on a major scientific mapping project, which will help decide who owns Hans Island and- much more importantly- who can lay claim to undersea resources in the surrounding Arctic Ocean region.

In their bid to claim the North Pole, the two nations share a common enemy. That's because Russia wants to divide the Arctic Ocean into sectors, splitting sovereignty over the pole into several territories.

In an open letter to the Canadian public, which was reprinted last week in several national newspapers, Kristensen says Denmark appreciates that "the larger issue of sovereignty in the North is a real concern to Canada," and suggests the dispute over Hans Island be settled by negotiations and "the rule of law."

In fact, that process is already well underway. Both Canada and Denmark have ratified the 1986 U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea. This gives them the right to make claims beyond 200 nautical miles of new land and underwater resources in the Arctic Ocean. The two have until 2013 to make their claims.

Their joint, multi-year $75 million mapping project will collect data for the redrawing of the continental shelf line in the Arctic Ocean north of Ellesmere Island and Greenland.

This seabed mapping will show whether Greenland or Ellesmere Island is attached to the 2,000 kilometer-long Lomonosov Ridge that runs through the North Pole, dividing the Arctic Ocean into two parts. Canada and Denmark want to divide the North Pole along this line, not into sectors, as Russia is proposing.

With this project, Kristensen says "we will be better equipped to divide the land and sea according to each country's wishes," when time comes to file individual claims on behalf of Canada and Denmark.