Our Arctic Neighbors: UN approves Norway’s offshore borders

Norway has made certain that its claims to oil and gas resources in the Arctic are not going to disappear down the Loop Hole or the Banana Hole. The Loop Hole in the Barents Sea, the Banana Hole in the Norwegian and Greenland Seas, and the Western Nansen basin in the Arctic Ocean are the areas analyzed by the U.N.’s Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf in a set of recommendations March 27, making Norway the first Arctic nation to establish such limits.

“This establishes a clear division of responsibility and creates predictable conditions for activities in the High North,” said Norway’s foreign minister, Jonas Gahr Store. “It confirms that Norway has substantial rights and responsibilities in maritime areas of some 235,000 square kilometers (90,734 square miles). The recommendation is therefore of historic significance for Norway.”

The commission made its recommendations based on documents submitted by Norway in 2006. The recommendations have no effect on unresolved issues concerning delimitation between Norway and neighboring states, such as Russia.

Approval of Norway’s claim is “a precondition for future resource management, creates a firmer basis for investments and is an effective implementation in the High North of the legal order for the oceans,” Store said.

According to the U.N. Law of the Sea Convention a coastal nation can extend its offshore jurisdiction beyond the customary 200-mile limit of the nation’s economic exclusion zone by presenting for U.N approval evidence that the nation’s continental shelf extends beyond the 200-mile limit. Many countries, including Norway, have continental shelves that do extend more than 200 miles out. The Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf adjudicates over applications for extended offshore jurisdiction.

—Sarah Hurst