Abstract
Some regions defined in biophysical terms are subject to shared authority and responsibility with regard to matters of governance. When such regions lie outside or beyond the limits of national jurisdiction, they constitute international spaces. Where they are subject to the jurisdiction of two or more states, they constitute shared spaces. Together, international spaces and shared spaces make up the domain of ecopolitical regions. Focusing on marine shared spaces, which we describe as regional seas, this book addresses issues of governance broadly defined, with a particular emphasis on the achievement of sustainability regarding human activities occurring in regional seas. We treat the Bering Strait Region and the Barents Sea Region as cases studies for an in-depth examination of this topic. In the process, we seek to contribute to understanding regarding the pursuit of sustainability in regional seas and ecopolitical regions more generally.
This chapter draws on Berkman, Vylegzhanin, and Young 2016 and Vylegzhanin, Young, and Berkman 2018.
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Notes
- 1.
Because the key actors in the ecopolitical regions we analyze in this book are states, governance requires international or intergovernmental cooperation. But analogous issues arise when the relevant actors are subnational units of governance or other units including Indigenous Peoples’ Organizations.
- 2.
For a general discussion of the use of the terms sustainability and sustainable development in the work of the Pan-Arctic Options Project, see the Series Preface included in this volume.
- 3.
The terms “opposite” and “adjacent” were introduced in the final report on the law of the sea prepared by the International Law Commission in 1956. These terms were used in the Convention on the Territorial Sea and the Contiguous Zone, 1958 (Art. 12) and in the Convention on the Continental Shelf, 1958 (Art. 6). The terms are used in the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS 1982) in Arts. 15 (“Delimitation of the territorial sea between States with opposite or adjacent coasts”), 74 (“Delimitation of the exclusive economic zone between States with opposite or adjacent coasts”), and 83 (“Delimitation of the continental shelf between States with opposite or adjacent coasts”). Whether coasts are “opposite” or “adjacent” depends on the configuration of the relevant coasts and their geographical position in relation to one another. The UN Convention on the Law of the Sea was opened for signature in 1982 and entered into force in 1994.
- 4.
While developed independently, our use of the term “regional seas” is compatible with the usage of the phrase in UNEP’s Regional Seas Programme to refer to what are described as “shared seas” with an emphasis on transboundary issues relevant to sustainable management and use.
- 5.
UNEP’s Regional Seas Programme includes thirteen marine areas, but none of these is in the Arctic.
- 6.
Though sustainable development is notoriously difficult to define precisely, there is general agreement on the proposition that it requires balancing the pillars of economic development, sociocultural well-being and environmental protection (Sachs 2015).
- 7.
Sustainable infrastructure development involves the “combination of fixed, mobile, and other built assets (including communications, research, observing and information systems) and regulatory, policy, and other governance mechanisms (including insurance)” (Berkman 2015).
- 8.
In this context, the description of the Bering Strait as “three navigational channels” suggested earlier does not seem to be accurate: “At the mid-point of the strait there are two islands – Big Diomede (Russia) and Little Diomede (United States) – effectively creating three navigational channels: Bering Strait – East, which lies between Russian mainland and Big Diomede Island; Bering Strait – West, which lies between the US mainland and Little Diomede Island; and the Diomede Channel, which is a channel separating Big Diomede and Little Diomede Islands” (Molenaar et al. 2013, pp. 384–385).
- 9.
- 10.
There is no objective way to assign precise boundaries to marine ecopolitical regions. The area we designate as the BaSR encompasses a portion of the Norwegian Sea in the west and overlaps with two Arctic LMEs identified by the Arctic Council in 2004 in Large Marine Ecosystems (LMEs) of the Arctic Area. https://oaarchive.arctic-council.org/handle/11374/61. The BaSR also encompasses some but not all of the areas covered by the OSPAR Convention and the Northeast Atlantic Fisheries Commission. Our analysis pertains explicitly to issues of governance arising in the area delineated in Fig. 1.2.
- 11.
Some analyses of the impacts of climate change raise the possibility of sharp changes in the thermohaline circulation in the North Atlantic, a development that could produce profound changes in the physical setting of the BaSR. See Timothy Lenton, “Arctic Tipping Points,” Ambio, 41 (2012): 10–22.
- 12.
One approach that some find helpful in this connection is to treat these regions as Large Marine Ecosystems or LMEs. See, for example, Per Ove Eikeland, “Distributional aspects of muiltispecies management: The Barents Sea Large Marine Ecosystem,” Marine Policy, 1993: 256–271.
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Young, O.R., Berkman, P.A., Vylegzhanin, A.N. (2020). Governing Arctic Seas: Sustainability in the Bering Strait and Barents Sea Regions. In: Young, O., Berkman, P., Vylegzhanin, A. (eds) Governing Arctic Seas: Regional Lessons from the Bering Strait and Barents Sea. Informed Decisionmaking for Sustainability. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-25674-6_1
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