Even if the area around the Arctic is a region with low populousness and difficult climatic conditions, it is of high economic interest because of its potentially richness of resources. Furthermore, the region is really important as an air route and waterway. Especially the US, Canada, the Scandinavian countries and Russia are highly interested to secure their rights in this area.
Since there are more and more countries interested in the poles for the aforementioned reasons, the main topic of today’s DISEC debates was the militarization of the poles. There is high interest to define the nations rights within the area because there are no clear borders in which frame states are allowed to act in the arctic. In order to save their interest mainly the U.S. and the Russian Federation have serval military bases in the region.
The delegation of the U.S. strongly defended its position to militarize the poles in order to ensure trade routes and security. The delegation of the United States stressed out that” militarization means security”.
During the session the Prime Minister of Canada arrived to give an impression of Canada´s position. Canada strongly promotes the idea to create an independent UN monitored patrol body to ensure demilitarization in the arctic in order to make the arctic a military free zone which should be claimed only environmental and scientific issues. The statement of the Prime Minister caused a lot of confusion within the Committee because it seems that Canada changed its opinion concerning this topic.
As far as the wordy debates came today, it does not look like the delegations will be able to find a legal framework in order to define nation’s demands on the territory of the arctic right now. Despite of of the current disagreement among the delegations, there is hope that a solution will be reached by the end of the summit.
