The International Law of the Sea and Arctic Governance: Paving the Way to Integrated Ecosystem-Based Marine Management

This chapter appears in The Environmental Rule of Law for Oceans (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2023) and is available via open access.

Abstract

This chapter is aimed at analysing options to integrate the ecosystem-based approach (EBA) with Arctic Ocean governance. Today there is a clear global trend of replacing traditional sectoral regulation of different maritime activities with the EBA. This approach entails regulation of all types of economic activities in sea areas where they might have negative impacts on the marine environment. Since the boundaries of ecosystems in the Arctic do not generally overlap with the limits of the coastal States’ national jurisdiction and cover areas beyond national jurisdiction (ABNJ), several crucial challenges arise. How to make regional measures in ABNJ binding and ensure compliance by non-Arctic States? How will the EBA correlate with sectoral environmental measures regarding, in particular, fisheries, exploitation of resources in the Area and vessel traffic in the Arctic, adopted by relevant sectoral international organizations? The chapter focuses on finding answers to these and other relevant questions.