Vive Le Canada

Will China Have Rights To The North Pole?

Posted on Saturday, August 11 at 11:07 by jensonj
“This isn't the 15th century. You can't go around the world and plant flags and say 'we're claiming this territory'," said Canada’s Foreign Minister Peter MacKay. U.S. State Department spokeswoman Leslie Phillips said “We wish the Russian scientists a safe expedition…” Russian scientists, joined by the veteran Australian polar explorer Michael McDowell and Frederik Paulsen, a Swedish pharmaceuticals millionaire and co-sponsor of the effort, indeed had a safe and successful trip to the Pole and to the sea bed nearly two miles beneath it. The expedition amused the entire world, and only days after the historic dive, countries and legal specialists started wondering “What does all this mean and who really owns the Pole? At the moment, the legal picture surrounding claims to the North Pole is unclear. Countries control 12 miles of their coastal seas; everything beyond that is considered open sea, available to everyone on an equal basis. The U.S. Senate has not yet ratified U.S. accession to the Law of the Sea, which states that the five countries surrounding the Arctic Circle – Russia, the United States, Canada, Norway and Denmark (via Greenland) – are limited to the 200-mile economic zone around their coasts... Full article: http://www.russiablog.org/2007/08/will_china_have_rights_to_the.php

Note: http://www.russiablog.o...

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  1. by jensonj
    Sat Aug 11, 2007 11:20 pm
    >>Professor Posner believes that power, not law, will define ownership of the pole. “That is why Russia is sending ships into the Arctic, and why Canada is saying that it will patrol the Northwest Passage. As long as such expressions of power are credible, other nations, disadvantaged by distance, will generally acquiesce and sovereignty will be extended accordingly. Russia's expression of power is credible; Canada's is not. Canada cannot prevent other countries from sending ships up the Northwest Passage, as the U.S. has demonstrated from time to time for just this purpose”. According to Posner, Canada’s “recent announcement that it will build patrol vessels in order to establish sovereignty over the passage had a belligerent tone uncharacteristic of our peaceful neighbor.”

    The issue boils down to: who has the power, the economic resources, and the access to control the North Pole and shipping routes between Europe, America and Asia, opening up due to global warming?<<

    This says it all in a nut shell. Canada's sovereignty is being threaten and PM Harper and his ice breakers are a sign of his dragging of his feet on this issue and the security and protection of Canada's territories and independence.

    He needed to act yesterday not tomorrow!

    ---
    Perception is two thirds of what we perceive reality to be.

    Difficult decisions are a privilege of rank.



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