Who Owns Rights to Melting Arctic?

As the ice melts, Russia, Canada, and the U.S. vie for shipping and natural resource rights around the North Pole

By Arik Hesseldahl

The idea for "Who Owns Rights to Melting Arctic?" came from Douglass Nelson, a BusinessWeek reader for more than 30 years. A Navy veteran, he lives in Colorado Springs and works for Lockheed Martin.

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This map shows potential routes of the Northwest Passage and Russia's Northern Sea Route. Though the Northwest Passage is currently iced over, analysts think global warming might reduce the ice and make passage a viable shipping route in 30 or 40 years. Ray Vella

For the better part of four centuries, explorers prowled the seas of North America, hunting the long rumored Northwest Passage, a navigable waterway that would connect Europe and Asia by way of the icy waters of the Arctic.

It wasn't until 1905 that Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen made the first trip from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific by way of Arctic waterways, a feat that took him three years. Since then, fewer than 200 ships have repeated the journey because of the constant threats of ice.

Still, the hope for a Northwest Passage lingers and has become central to a key international debate heating up over the Arctic north. If climate change and global warming are real—and there's currently little doubt over that—then it stands to reason that the ice covering Arctic waterways will decrease in coming decades, presenting fewer navigational problems for shipping. If the ice recedes—and few experts expect it will do so year-round—cargo shipping times and distances could, the thinking goes, be cut: A 12,400-mile voyage from Japan to England by way of the Panama Canal could be shortened to less than 8,700 miles using the Northwest Passage, saving 14 days and costs.

Canada's Claim

But then whose water is it? Practically all of the navigable Northwest Passage routes, and there are only a few, pass between Canadian islands. Thus, Canada has argued that these portions of the route are domestic waterways, and that ships traversing the area should do so with Canadian permission. That has touched off a bit of a row between the U.S. and Canada. Just days before leaving office, President George W. Bush released a sweeping security directive asserting that the Northwest Passage is an "international waterway," meaning that American ships, or in theory those of any other nation, should be able to sail through the area in the same way they do other international waterways. The directive has been seen as a sharp rebuttal to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who has advocated boosting Canada's military presence in the area.

Canada has maintained since the 1970s that it views the waters not as "international," but rather "internal." On all but three occasions of the 180-odd times that international ships have traversed the passage, Canadian permission and aid was sought, usually in the form of an icebreaking vessel, says Rob Huebert, a professor of political science at the University of Calgary, who specializes in Arctic affairs. That fact also helps buttress Canada's argument, he says. "Canada is the one with the expertise and the familiarity with the conditions," Huebert says. For years, the U.S. and Canada have quietly agreed to disagree over the matter—until Jan. 9, when Bush issued his Arctic security directive.