Lock, Stock and Icebergs: A History of Canada’s Arctic Maritime Sovereignty, by Adam Lajeunesse
| DOI | 10.1177/0020702017723558 |
| Published date | 01 September 2017 |
| Date | 01 September 2017 |
| Author | Peter Kikkert |
| Subject Matter | Book Reviews |
Adam Lajeunesse
Lock, Stock and Icebergs: A History of Canada’s Arctic Maritime Sovereignty
Vancouver: UBC Press, 2016. 416pp. $34.95 (paperback)
ISBN: 9780774831093
Reviewed by: Peter Kikkert (kikkertpeter@gmail.com), Sheridan College
Ivan Head, a lawyer and civil servant who studied the evolution of Canada’s
Arctic maritime sovereignty policy and helped create the Arctic Waters Pollution
Prevention Act (AWPPA), once commented that, ‘‘step by step, fiber by fiber,’’
the Canadian government had ‘‘weaved a fabric of sovereignty in the north’’
(175). In this detailed and well-written study, historian Adam Lajeunesse assesses
the twists and turns involved in Ottawa’s construction of this fabric for the Arctic
waters over the century between 1880 and the 1980s, and identifies some of the
holes that remain. In particular, Lajeunesse focuses on the evolution of Canadian
thinking on three interconnected issues: how to define Canada’s Arctic waters,
how to legally and politically justify a claim to those waters, and how to advance
an official claim on the international stage. In exploring these themes, he takes
the reader on a journey through the historic legal thinking of Canadian officials
as they tried to build a case for Canada’s sovereignty over the Arctic waters, and
ably explains the key ideas that have defined Canadian policy: from the sector
principle, to historic internal waters and straight baselines, to the AWPPA and
Article 234 of the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. In
charting a course through these legal developments, Lajeunesse highlights the
complex interplay between law, diplomacy, and state practice that has shaped
Canada’s Arctic policy.
In an excellent introduction that engages with the rich body of historical schol-
arship on Canada’s Arctic sovereignty, Lajeunesse effectively situates his study in
the literature. He takes a position between the two main opposing schools of
thought on the development of Canada’s Arctic policy. On one side are those
scholars who believe that the government has been reactive and ineffective in its
policy-making, and who argue that Ottawa should have attained formal recogni-
tion of Canada’s Arctic maritime sovereignty long ago. On other side are those who
argue that External Affairs developed a clear and consistent policy to gradually
strengthen Canada’s claim while avoiding disastrous political and legal challenges.
In his study, Lajeunesse adds nuance to the arguments of both schools by high-
lighting Ottawa’s failure to unify thinking across the political and bureaucratic
spheres, which resulted in several waves of inaccurate, inconsistent, and damaging
public pronouncements by Canadian politicians, even as civil servants worked to
construct a strong legal case behind the scenes.
Much of the legal subject matter covered by Lajeunesse has been thoroughly
explored by international lawyers, including eminent scholars Donat Pharand and
Donald M. McRae. Nevertheless, the new archival material that Lajeunesse draws
upon—much of it uncovered through access to information requests—affirms the
Book Reviews 435
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