Ice melting in the Arctic can bring legal consequences
At the international level, there are disagreements concerning the status of the straits near the New Siberian Islands and the Severnaya Zemlya archipelago, Pavel Gudev, Leading Research Fellow - Head of the Working Group for the Study of the Policy of the United States and its Allies in the World Ocean at IMEMO RAS, said at the round-table meeting "Transport and Transit Potential of the Arctic" held with the participation of IAA PortNews. According to him, the USA upholds the position that those straits have the status of international ones, and, consequently, ships have the right of a free transit along them. The United States substantiate their position referring to a geographic criterion: according to them, if a strait borders on the open sea it should be considered as an international one.
At the same time, Russia insists on the application of a functional criterion, according to which the status of the strait depends on whether they are used for a regular international navigation. Therefore, intensified international navigation on the Northern Sea Route (NSR) can aggravate the disagreement.
Besides, there are risks associated with the ice melting in the Arctic. Article 234 of the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, provides that “coastal States have the right to adopt and enforce non-discriminatory laws and regulations for the prevention, reduction and control of marine pollution from vessels in ice-covered areas within the limits of the exclusive economic zone, where particularly severe climatic conditions and the presence of ice covering such areas for most of the year create obstructions or exceptional hazards to navigation…”
Therefore, if the ice cover on the Northern Sea Route does not remain for most of the year, then Russia will not be able to appeal to this article.