Introduction

The Arctic region has risen to significance at the crossroads of climate change, new and more accessible oil deposits, and the littoral states’ claims to maritime domains within the procedures stipulated by the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). Its significance is thus deeply ambivalent. On the one hand, the vulnerabilities of Arctic ecology and the legal issues allude to global interdependence. With this change come certain codes of conduct embedded in multilateral institutions and arrangements. These norms and practices could have a continued impact on interaction among states bordering on the region, as they have had in the past. On the other hand, the rise of the Arctic on the international agenda is caused by changes throughout the international system. These processes, vaguely termed globalization, potentially make the Arctic an object of “politics,” and possibly less “governance.” As Alyson Bailes suggests, “If the region is being invaded by global processes, at least this current set of issues is arising at a time when globalization is a recognized, much analyzed, and (to a limited but increasing extent) a directed phenomenon.” It is under the pressure of this directed phenomenon that future state interaction in the region is – under the emerging paradigm of energy shortages and a subsequent “crude rush” to Arctic waters – fraught with new uncertainties. As states position themselves for the ensuing dash to the north, expectations of gains may come to dominate over the expectations shaped by the knowledge-based institutions and legal regimes of the Arctic. More so, as the Arctic has been termed a region with a limited potential for civilian multilateral cooperation, the prospects that states may “securitize” Arctic policies may further preclude constructive interaction.