Introduction ‐ The Governance of the Global Commons: Much Unfinished Business?
| Published date | 01 February 2012 |
| Author | Klaus Dodds |
| Date | 01 February 2012 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1758-5899.2011.00157.x |
Introduction - The Governance of the
Global Commons: Much Unfinished
Business?
Klaus Dodds
Royal Holloway, University of London
Abstract
The planting of a Russian flag at the bottom of the central Arctic Ocean in the summer of 2007 drew attention, in
dramatic fashion, to a subterranean space beyond national jurisdiction. While the region was a permanent feature in
Cold War strategic planning, the flag planting incident was rapidly framed as indicative of a different kind of struggle
– ‘a scramble for territory and resources’. Notwithstanding the media led hyperbole, one question to emerge was an
apparently straightforward one – did any one state or group of states possess sovereign rights in the central Arctic
Ocean? More generally, how do issues of access, control, property rights and resource use continue to affect the
governance of the global commons? This special section explores those questions.
In 2007–08, a series of Arctic Ocean coastal states includ-
ing Canada, Denmark ⁄Greenland and Russia made it
clear that they believed that, under the terms of the Uni-
ted Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS),
they might be able to extend their sovereign rights to
large portions of the Arctic Ocean. Indeed the Russian
government submitted materials to the Commission on
the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS) in 2001 outlin-
ing geological and oceanographic reasons why Russia
might enjoy extended sovereign rights over the
resources on the seabed, including the central Arctic
Ocean. Thus far, there is no agreement as to the geo-
graphical extent of sovereign rights of coastal states,
especially with regard to extended continental shelves.
For other interested parties such as the US, China and
the European Union, ensuring navigation rights and
rights to innocent passage, regardless of who might
enjoy sovereign rights to the Arctic Ocean seabed,
remains a priority.
As Ash Roach notes in his practitioner commentary,
however, there is an urgent need to endorse and imple-
ment appropriate safety standards for maritime shipping,
and for the Arctic Council as the leading intergovern-
mental forum, to push ahead with its oil spill response
plans, following agreement in May 2011 on search and
rescue in the Arctic region. Diminishing sea ice is creat-
ing opportunities and dangers in this particular global
common.
The flag planting episode, unwittingly perhaps, drew
attention to a broader issue, which is how does the inter-
national community, and accompanying legal norms,
international regimes and political conventions, address
areas of the earth such as the oceans and the polar
regions, which are beyond the sovereign jurisdiction of
nation states? Historically, global commons have been
understood as open access areas – in other words places
that were simply too extensive for any one state or group
of states to administer. The oceans, in particular, are indic-
ative and activities such as fishing poses considerable
managerial challenges – fish are mobile and untroubled
by political boundaries, and long-distance fishing fleets
hunting fish stocks remain capable of exploiting stocks,
often to the point of ecological collapse. What was true
for fish could also apply to whales and seals, especially in
the Arctic and Antarctic.
Developing property rights and ⁄or controlling access
to the oceans also meant addressing security related
concerns. The evolution of the Law of the Sea is in large
part related to anxieties about how to manage and
administer on the one hand, the economic and security
concerns of coastal states and on the other hand, the
interests of others including fishing and trading parties.
The development of territorial seas (12 nautical miles
from the coastal baseline), and later exclusive economic
zones (200 nautical miles) and ‘the area’ (the areas of
the seabed beyond national jurisdiction) in international
maritime law was thus an attempt to manage the poten-
tially competing interests of parties – coastal state, non
coastal state and non state organizations alike. Later
interest in airspace, for example, witnessed agreement
Global Policy Volume 3 . Issue 1 . February 2012
ª2012 London School of Economics and Political Science and John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Global Policy (2012) 3:1 doi: 10.1111/j.1758-5899.2011.00157.x
Special Section: Introduction
58
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