It does not happen very often that an edited volume has a dedication printed in it. This reviewer has in fact never seen that. But there are always ‘firsts’ and it is thus that this volume is ‘dedicated to all those scholars who commit to work in extreme environments and have a planetary vision of diplomacy.’ And 15 articles by 25 of these scholars, plus a short Preface, an Introduction and an Epilogue by the editors and a Foreword by renowned environmental lawyer James Gustave Speth, challenge the reader for a better understanding of the different notions, approaches and concepts of polar diplomacy beyond that of a ‘race’ for the Arctic, but rather towards means of cooperation. Setting the bar rather high, this volume aims to flesh out overlooked themes in the scholarly literature and to open up new pathways of discussion that highlight the cooperative structures as well as challenges in both polar regions.

Part 1, The law - legal structures in the polar regions, plunges right in and without a doubt meets the expectations of the knowledge-thirsty reader. Duyck, for instance, discusses the role of non-state actors in both polar regions and concludes that while structurally different, both polar governance systems allow for significant input of non-state actors such as indigenous peoples organisations in the Arctic or the Scientific Committee of Antarctic Research (SCAR) in the Antarctic. As Liggett shows, the way the Antarctic Treaty System (ATS) has been functioning since the adoption of the Antarctic Treaty does not necessarily extend into the future and she concludes that it needs ‘potentially drastic step to bring the regime in line with the contemporary global environment’ (page 70). But it is especially Hossain's paper on the legal framework pertaining to invasive species in the Arctic which caught this reviewer's attention. While mentioned as an important threat to Arctic biodiversity already in the Arctic climate impact assessment (ACIA 2005) and further underlined in the Arctic biodiversity assessment (CAFF 2013), Hossain touches upon the legal issues pertaining to this threat, highlighting the difficulties in legal responses to a persevering and potentially increasing problem. Unfortunately Hossain does not cover the legal elements pertaining to hybrid species resulting from these invasions, a significantly under-explored element of polar law (see also Trouwborst Reference Trouwborst2014).

Part 2 screens the Critical actors: power dynamics and driving forces in polar regions. Once again, five articles comprise this part. Bertelsen and Hansen open up this part with a comparative study on energy harnessing in Iceland and which contributes to the countries diversifying their economies. Iceland's success in doing so could indeed serve as a lesson for Greenland in its pursuit of building a resilient economy. However, at the same time, environmental problems associated with energy exploitation in Iceland ‘require careful democratic deliberation’ (page 127). Unfortunately, Zia and other's contribution Arctic melting tests the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea does not provide new insight into the jurisdictional disputes in the Arctic, but rather summarises what has been published elsewhere. Also their discussion on alternatives to UNCLOS, such as a biosphere reserve based on the Antarctic experience, is rather brief and does not present a deeper elaboration on the (dis)advantages or degree of realistic implementation of such proposal. Arthur Mason, on the other hand, opens a wholly new chapter on the role of consulting agencies as active actors in the Arctic, shaping the region's development and economic significance. This reviewer has not come across any similar studies in the Arctic yet – which is, however, not to say that they don't exist – making Mason's contribution a unique piece for the understanding of Arctic socio-economic status quo. While somewhat missing the red thread in Mason's article, this reviewer regards it as an article providing significant ground work for further research. Whether by intent or not, in light of Mason's article the paper Connecting China through ‘creative diplomacy’ - Greenland, Australia, and climate cooperation in polar regions can be read through a different lens. After all, one of the authors, Damien Degeorges, works as a consultant on Arctic matters. Highlighting the special role of Greenland and Australia with their respective climate ‘laboratories’ and their rare earth elements, the authors show how diplomatic leverage in the polar regions can benefit from geographic and geological circumstances. As the last contribution to this part, Pincus touches upon the securitisation of the Arctic, especially from a US perspective. While not explicitly making reference to it, this paper deals with ‘traditional’ security, military and sovereignty, exclusively and should be read in conjunction with other papers on the matter (such as most recently for example Corgan Reference Corgan and Heininen2014 or Rothwell Reference Rothwell, Lalonde and MacDorman2015). Also here the question arises as to the original contribution of the paper. The student of current legal and political developments will find much information in this paper which has been produced elsewhere.

The last five papers comprise the part Community: human rights, indigenous politics and collective learning. Rebecca Bratspies opens up the part with her contribution on human rights as a tool to improve Arctic governance. Her highlighting of the Arctic Council as a forerunner to employ human rights through participatory rights for ‘indigenous groups and other affected local communities’ (page 177) has been a recurring theme in the literature on Arctic governance (for instance Heinämäki Reference Heinämäki, Koivurova, Keskitalo and Bankes2009 or Byers Reference Byers2013). Especially the EU trade ban on seal products stands exemplary for the participatory rights (or the neglect thereof) of Arctic communities (Cambou Reference Cambou2013; Sellheim Reference Sellheim2013). Once again, this reviewer finds many issues that have been covered in the wider literature. Contrarily, Castro and others provide a deeply insightful empirical case study on community cooperation from the Labrador Innu community Sheshatshiu, feeding into the discourse on resilience, sharing and community development in high latitudes. To this reviewer, the inclusion of ethnography-based studies in a volume like the present is highly beneficial as it puts theoretical and academic discussions in a narrower context, showing how concepts find practical applications in real-world environments. Similarly, the comparative study on Russian and North American experiences in energy and infrastructure projects by Yakovleva and Grover enables the better understanding of the Arctic as a diverse region, yet facing challenges of similar character in different sub-regions. However, an issue hardly covered in Arctic governance and cooperative discourses is that of bureaucracy and locals’ responses thereto. Drawing from experiences from the North Slope in Alaska, Sheehan and Jensen show how locals often feel overwhelmed by the level of bureaucracy and the overall western style of cooperation and capacity building. The authors indeed open new ground especially in the fields of legal and political anthropology which, when linked with other disciplines like in this volume, make the nature and success/failure stories in the Arctic crucially better comprehensible. As the last paper in the book, Osgood and Young provide a brief overview of the development of Arctic area studies in the form of the University of the Arctic (www.uarctic.org) or the Centre for Circumpolar Studies (www.circumpolarstudies.org). While not covering their relevance, also the benefits and challenges in their establishment and maintenance are discussed.

Rebecca Pincus briefly summarises the book in the short Epilogue. The most pressing questions she sees to be: ‘How should we manage the final frontiers? Will we repeat history, and to lasting damage to the fragile ecosystems and traditional ways of life? Or can we create new, durable governance structures [. . .] and usher in a new era of cooperation at the ends of the earth?’ (page 238). Diplomacy on ice certainly provides high level chapters on these questions, making some of the contributions valuable for answering them. The linkage of different disciplines and enable theoretical and empirical reflections on the cooperative structures in the Arctic. It goes without saying that for this reviewer it is especially the inter- and multidisciplinary approaches to Arctic governance which are noteworthy and beneficial in this volume. At the same time, especially Part 2 shows some shortcomings as regards the new information provided in them. While themselves very good articles, frequent consultation of Arctic scholarly literature makes overlaps and repetition visible, robbing the articles of their originality while maybe at the same time exposing weaknesses in the Arctic research field itself. . .? Although this may be certainly be said with a question mark.

To conclude, while there is some overlap with other publications, in general Diplomacy on ice is a volume of high academic value, of challenging finesse in the choice of topics and a multidisciplinary contribution to (Ant)Arctic cooperative discourse.