Recent years have seen an increasing focus on the northern passage from eastern Russia to Norway, and the time saved compared with travelling south via Singapore and the Suez Canal, but a new study of Arctic shipping over the coming decades has said that the region will see a massive opening up of traffic in the Arctic, with a waning of Russian influence in the region as the “northern passage” becomes relatively less significant.
Researchers from Browne and Maine universities in the US noted that parts of the Arctic that were once covered in ice year-round were warming so quickly that they would be
ice-free for months on end as soon as 2042. By 2065 the Arctic’s navigability will have increased to such a degree that it could yield new trade routes in international waters giving ships alternatives to the Russian-controlled Northern Sea Route, the research found.
Amanda Lynch, the study’s lead author , said that “there’s no scenario in which melting ice
in the Arctic is good news, but the unfortunate reality is that the ice is already retreating, these routes are opening up, and we need to start thinking critically about the legal, environmental and geopolitical implications.”
Since 1982 UNCLOS has given Arctic coastal states enhanced authority over primary shipping routes.
Charles Norchi,a director of the Centre for Oceans and Coastal Law at Maine Law, and one of the study’s co-authors, said that for decades Russia had been using these rules for
its own economic and geopolitical interests. However, Article 234 of UNCLOS will cease to be applicable if there’s no ice covered-area for most of the year.
