UN awards Sea of Okhotsk enclave to Russia

On 15 March the Russian Minister of Natural Resources and Environment, Sergey Donskoy, announced that the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf had recognised a section of the Sea of Okhotsk as part of his country’s continental shelf. The enclave, off Russia’s eastern coast, covers a 52,000 square kilometre area of fishing waters estimated to be rich in oil and gas reserves.

At the press conference, Donskoy told reporters that “This is in fact an accomplished event,” stressing that this decision to place the enclave under Russian jurisdiction was irreversible; Russia will get exclusive rights to the area. He said the Ministry had received a formal certificate from the UN Commission, which gives it exclusive rights to subsoil resources and the seabed, although the Sea technically still remains part of international waters.

Though the news of the UN Commission award is not really new – it was announced back in November – it had to be confirmed by the 33rd session of the body held earlier this month. Speaking last year, Donskoy said "Thanks to recognition of this enclave as a part of the Russian continental shelf, our country will gain more reserves of valuable minerals and other natural resources. This 52,000-square-kilometer territory is a real Ali Baba's cave in terms of resources. Access to it will open up enormous opportunities and prospects for the Russian economy."

The enclave forms part of the Okhotsk Sea, a marginal sea which covers an area of 1.6 million square kilometres in the western Pacific Ocean, located to the west of the Kamchatka Peninsula and north of the Kuril Islands. Traditionally known for its rich fishing waters, up to 40 per cent of the newly awarded enclave could hold hydrocarbons resources. Offshore blocks near the Russian port of Magadan have shown serious prospects in terms of crude deposits.

The Minister has said that Russia’s case for this award is a pre-cursor to its claims in the Arctic Circle, “which will be drafted in the near future”. Russia was the first country to submit territorial claims to the UN Commission charged with demarcating borders in the Arctic. 

Canada makes Arctic claim

Earlier this month, Canada made a partial submission to the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf to extend its maritime borders in the Arctic to encompass an extra half a million square miles of territory, including the North Pole. This move has angered some of the other four states who lay claim to a portion of the Arctic, including Russia, Greenland, US and Denmark. Claims to the region will become crucial geopolitical considerations for these states in the coming years, as the area north of the Arctic Circle has an estimated 90 billion barrels of undiscovered oil according to the US Geological Survey.

Canada's Foreign Minister John Baird said last week that, as part of its submission, his government was making a claim on the Lomonosov Ridge, a submerged mountain-range between Ellesmere Island, Canadian territory, and Russia's Siberian coast. Russia, which has historically named the Ridge as part of its territory, responded to Canada's move by increasing its military presence in the Arctic. President Vladimir Putin has reasserted that the region is key to his nation's interests and that he would build up infrastructure in an area that has seen a Russian retreat in recent years.

Despite the charged, publicly-iterated political rhetoric from Canada and Russia, according to researchers from the International Boundaries Research Unit in Durham University, teams of scientists from both nations are working together on the frozen region, and in reality, there is a great deal more co-operation than their leaders let on. Nevertheless, it is likely that Canada's claim is largely political, more than anything else, given that there are no hydrocarbons reserves at the North Pole.

Canada signed the UNCLOS on 10 December 1982 and ratified it on the 7 November 2003, entering into force exactly a month later. As of August of this year, 165 countries plus the European Union have signed the Convention, with the notable exception of US.

Fence erected on Georgia-South Ossetia border

The village of Dvani, located on the administrative border between Georgia and the newly autonomous region of South Ossetia and home to around 1,000 people, has seen a number of protests in recent weeks over the erection of boundary fences by Russian forces. Other villages, such as Ditsi and Didi Khurvaleti, have also been affected by the dividing fences, which locals say amounts to a 'creeping borderisation' across Georgian territory that was not originally agreed upon following the 2008 Russia-Georgia War. The news has received much attention as Georgia's presidential elections approach this Sunday.

According to EU monitors, around 40km of barbed wire fencing has been erected along the 400km border, supported by intermittent pylons fitted with hi-tech surveillance equipment. At some junctures, the fence intersects properties, contiguous farmland and historical sites, including cemeteries. The majority of the work has been completed by Russia's army, appointed by South Ossetia to protect its borders as it did not have an independent force of its own.

Georgia's Foreigh Minister Maia Panjikidze last month said that the this provocative boundary demarcation amounts to “the illegal action of the Russian occupying forces”, a position supported by the EU's High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Catherine Ashton, who has called on Russia to remove the fence. Moscow's Minister for Foreign Affairs, Sergei Lavrov, has labelled T'bilisi's claims “propagandistic hysteria”, denying that Russian action violate international norms.

On 25 August 2008, Russia recognised the breakaway states of Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent after having supported local militant groups during the 2008 Russia-Georgia War, however, Georgia saw this as an annexation of its territory and formally cut all diplomatic ties with its northern neighbour. Ever since then, the boundary situation has been fluid and unsettled. Border outposts have been moved back and forth, and shooting incidents still occasionally occur. EU monitors have played a limited role in keeping the peace.

Norway to open up Barents for exploration after border demarcation

The Norwegian government is to propose exploration of a new sector of the Barents Sea, after a maritime boundary there was finally agreed with Russia.

Oil Minister Ola Borten Moe has said that the new area in the south-east Barents, covering around 44,000km2, could be explored from spring 2013. The government has already started seismic assessments in the region.

The demarcation of the maritime border with Russia was formally ratified last summer. Russia and Norway had been locked in a territorial dispute over the region since 1970, when Norway argued that the boundary should be drawn at the middle point between the nearest land areas belonging to both sides. Russia used claims drawn up by Stalin (unilaterally) that proposed a 'sectoral' approach along certain meridian lines.

A moratorium on oil and gas drilling in the disputed zone was announced in 1975, and the border was demarcated in 2010 based on a compromise which divides the disputed zone into two roughly equal parts.

Exploring the Barents Sea will allow Norway to begin offsetting its dependence on its North Sea oil and gas reserves, which are steadily declining. 181 blocks in the region have been nominated by oil companies in the preliminaries for the latest exploration round, the highest ever number. Nominating companies include ExxonMobil, Shell, ConocoPhillips, Total and Statoil.

The Oil Ministry will assess the nominations and announce which blocks are an offer by the summer, with full exploration work expected to go ahead by next year.

Sources: Upstream, Reuters, BBC

Iran, Russia oppose cross-border Caspian pipeline

Iran and Russia have both announced their opposition to a pipeline across the Caspian Sea, which was backed by the EU last week as a means to bring Caspian gas to Europe.

A trans-Caspian pipeline, running west from Turkmenistan to Azerbaijan along the Caspian seabed, has been under discussion for years, but has never got off the ground due to a lack of commercial imperative and political will. An ongoing dispute between Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan over their maritime border, and associated gas and oil fields, has also stymied progress.

On 13th September, however, the EU's Energy Commissioner Günther Oettinger announced that the EU was would start negotiating a legally binding treaty between Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan to build a trans-Caspian pipeline. Europe, said Oettinger, “is now speaking with one voice” – previous efforts to coordinate the 'Southern Corridor' to bring Caspian gas to Europe have been hamstrung by competing European agendas and approaches. The new mandate will empower it to arrange the legal and commercial requirements of a trans-Caspian system.

The pipeline would enable Turkmen gas to reach Europe without crossing Russian or Iranian soil. The EU is keen to reduce its energy dependence on Russia and avoid politically problematic Iran, whilst Turkmenistan is looking to diversify its energy export routes.

Tehran and Moscow have reacted angrily to the EU's intervention. Iran has stated that it opposes the project on ecological and legal grounds. Russia expressed its regret, and warned that the project did not account for “the actually existing international legal and geopolitical situation in the Caspian Basin today”.

The reference to geopolitics is significant, as it indicates the main reason for Russian and Iranian opposition (notwithstanding ecological protestations) – that a Caspian pipeline would enable Central Asian gas to avoid their territory, reducing their political and commercial leverage.

The other objection is that the legal status of the Caspian Sea, including the littoral states' maritime boundaries, is still unclear. Although most of the states have simply got on with developing gas and oil fields in their presumed sectors, the exact boundaries and the right of states to undertake major projects – like a subsea pipeline – is still legally unclear.

It is likely that Russia and Iran will apply a range of legal and political pressures to stop the pipeline from going ahead. The EU's internal problems and lack of focus towards the Caspian region may make it an unreliable patron for Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan, and unable to push the pipeline through against Russian and Iranian opposition.

Sources: Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Reuters

Japan criticises Russian moves around disputed Kuril Islands

The Japanese government has slammed a visit by a high-ranking Russian official to the disputed Kuril Islands, calling it “unacceptable”, as Russia acknowledged that its air force conducted drills close to Japanese airspace.


The 11th September visit of Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev is the latest in a string of visits by high-ranking officials to the Kuril Islands, including a trip by President Dmitry Medvedev in November, after which the Russian leader pledged to bolster the defences of the disputed territories.

The islands lie to the north of the Japanese island of Hokkaido and to the south of Russia's Sakhalin peninsula. They were administered by Japan until the end of the Second World War, when Russian forces overran them. The islands have been a point of contention between Moscow and Kyoto ever since, particularly given growing expectations about the quantity of oil and gas in the surrounding sea.

Russia has engaged in regular sabre-rattling over the islands, insisting that they are an indivisible part of Russia and promising to deploy advanced weapon systems to defend them.

Despite the recent spike in tensions, however, both Japanese and Russian officials have expressed their desire to settle the dispute amicably. On 9th September Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told his Japanese counterpart Koichiro Gemba that Moscow is happy to discuss a peace treaty “in a calm atmosphere”, although he reiterated that Russia ruled out any negotiations of its sovereignty over the Kurils.

Japan's new prime minister Yosihiko Noda, in a telephone conversation with Medvedev, also stated his willingness to sign a peace treaty and settle the issue. He may try and seek a resolution on the Kurils as a way of making his mark in office, although the range of other challenges facing him may make the dispute with Russia somewhat less of a priority.

In the meantime, Russia's military manoeuvres around the disputed area are likely to continue. The Defence Ministry has dismissed Japanese concern, pointing out that its strategic bombers did not violate Japan's airspace; Russia is also planning to conduct large-scale naval drills in the region.
Sources: Russia Today, RIA Novosti, Voice of Russia



Claim and counter-claim in the Kuril Islands dispute

Title to the southern islands of the Kuril chain in the Pacific Ocean is disputed by Japan and Russia. The Japanese refer to the islands as the Northern Territories while the Russians do so to the Southern Kurils. In 1855 Japan and the Russian Empire signed the Shimoda Treaty (see esp. Article II). Through its provisions Japan took the title to the four southern islands, and Russia to the chain of islands to the north and east. The chain’s southern islands were seized from Japan by the Soviet Union (the successor to the Russian Empire) in August 1945, and declared part of the Soviet Union in 1946. By 1949 all of the Japanese residents had been deported to Japan. 

Although the problem of the Kurils was only one of a number of reasons behind the Soviet Union’s refusal to sign the San Francisco Treaty which ended the Second World War between the Allies and Japan, it was nonetheless an important factor. One provision of the treaty was that Japan would renounce ‘all right, title and claim to the Kuril Islands’, but no beneficiary of the renunciation was stipulated in the treaty. As the Soviets never signed the treaty, Japanese governments have never recognised the four islands as the territory of the Soviet Union or, subsequently, the Russian Federation. Moreover, the default position of Japanese governments has been that the Soviet occupation of the territory that occurred just prior to Japan's surrender in 1945 was an act of illegal aggression. From this point stems the conviction that the de facto Soviet/Russian sovereignty that has been exercised subsequently has depended upon this illegality.

Continue reading the full article here.

Sino-Russian border compromise results in joint development of Heixiazi Island

Heixiazi Island, the orange portion is what China acquired in 2008

Proof that compromise over border disputes can benefit everyone involved, an island that used to be a major source of conflict between China and Russia is set to become a major tourist and business hub.

Heixiazi Island (Bolshoi Urrusiysky Island to the Russians) is a 327square km sandbar in the middle of the confluence of the Heilongjiang and Wusuli Rivers (also known as the Amur and Ussuri Rivers). The Russians have occupied the island since 1929, when Soviet troops took it during a border clash, but the two countries reached an agreement in July 2008 to share it. The Russians simultaneously returned Yinlong Island (Tarabarov Island). The agreement officially marked the end of demarcation of the 4,300km Sino-Russian border.

The Chinese half of the island is currently off limits, and guarded by the military, and the local Heilongjian government is planning to develop it into a northern winter resort, drawing tourists from nearby Russia, Japan and South Korea. The local government plans to invest some US$1.47 billion in Heixiazi, with plans for hotels, a free trade shopping centre and an industrial park. The Russians have previously used the island as a military base, and it is only sparsely inhabited.

Much of the Chinese development plans are directed at the Russians. The industrial park, for example, will house factories making products for the Russian market. Khabarovsk, one of the largest cities in Eastern Russia, is nearby Heixiazi, and is set to be linked with the island through jointly-developed roads, bridges, ports, a railroad and possibly an airport. Khabarovsk is well connected to the rest of the country by rail, thereby enabling Heixiazi’s products to reach the wider Russian market.

Heilongjiang province has had considerable success developing its tourism industry. Sun Island, in the middle of the Songhua River near Harbin, is a summer resort, featuring beaches, theme parks and a reserve for the endangered Siberian tiger. In the winter, it is the site of the popular Harbin Ice Festival.

Not everyone in China was happy about the resolution of the border disputes with Russia. Much of what is now the Sino-Russian border was a legacy of treaties between first the Qing Dynasty and the Russia empire, and later the various Chinese governments dealings with the Soviets. Many in China consider these treaties to be ‘unequal’, especially regarding territory in Manchuria and Mongolia. Many in China thought they rightfully deserved the whole of Heixiazi island, not only half.

Still, with property developers ready to move in, and northern China set to benefit from wealthy Russian and Japanese tourists, those who were against the agreement may come to see half as better than nothing.

Sources: China Briefing, Pravda, China Daily

Border Focus: The Arctic

Seemingly endless expanses of icy tundra, punctuated only by the occasion polar bear: the arctic on first glance doesn't seem worth fighting over. But it has been the centre of a dispute between the five nations that border it for the last sixty years. Russia, Norway, Canada, Denmark and the US all make claims to the arctic waters, and more importantly, what lies beneath them.

It is thought that up to 90 billion barrels of oil and 30 per cent of the world's undiscovered gas resources could lie in the arctic region, and as receding ice caps make accessing this inhospitable region easier, the race to establish ownership has heated up.

Russia and Norway

In 2010, Russia and Norway settled their dispute in the Barents Sea, and the Norway has used the occasion to encourage the other arctic nations to make similar progress. In response to signing the Barents Sea Pact, Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg said "It sends an important signal to the rest of the world - the Arctic is a peaceful region where any issues that arise are resolved in accordance with international law."

Russia and Norway have been in the process of delimiting their maritime boundary since 1957, when a short section of the maritime boundary, from the land boundary terminus through the confines of Varangerfjord, was designated. The boundary was extended through Varangerfjord in 2007, but it was only in 2010 that the lengthy section through the Barents Sea and into the Arctic Ocean was determined.

Norway had argued for a median line, which would put the boundary exactly equidistant from each country's coast, which Russia (and previously the Soviet Union) advocated extending the boundary north along the 32° 4' 35"E meridian. The boundary agreed last week is a compromise between the two lines.

Russia and Canada

While Russia has solved one of its disputes, its problem with Canada continues. This dispute centres on the Lomonosov Ridge, a 1,200mile underwater mountain range running along the floor of the Arctic Ocean from Siberia to Canada's Ellesmere Island. Russia first laid claim to the ridge in 2001, arguing that as it is part of Siberia's shelf, Russia was entitled to sole rights to the ridge and the nearby seabed. The UN rejected this claim, saying more evidence was needed. Russia is expected to resubmit in 2011-12, with Canada and Denmark expected to offer evidence for their claims to the region in 2013 and 2014 respectively.

Denmark and Canada
Canada also has a stalled dispute with Denmark over Hans Island, a tiny barren knoll in the middle of the Nares Strait, which divides Ellesmere Island and Denmark's Greenland Territory. The maritime boundary in the area was delimited in a 1973 treaty, which plotted 127 points through the strait. The island, however, lies in between two points, and so has remained in dispute. At the heart of the dispute is shipping rights, and it seems that Canada is worried that giving in on Hans Island will compromise its exclusive claims to the Northwest Passage. With the exception of displays of power – visits to the island by prominent politicians, planting of flags, and the holding of army exercises – little has been done to resolve the dispute.

Canada and the US
More progress has been made on Canada's dispute with the US over the Beaufort Sea. High-level discussions have occurred over the summer in 2010, and for the third year in a row, researchers from both countries worked in the region mapping the sea floor. The dispute emerged in the 1970s, over a triangle-shaped 21,500sq km section of the Beaufort Sea close to the Yukon-Alaska shore, but the joint Canada-US seabed surveys in 2008 and 2009 showed each country's claims could extend much farther toward the North Pole than previously imagined.

Canada envisions a boundary that is an extension of the arrow-straight land border between the Yukon and Alaska, whic follows the 141 meridian. The US, by contrast, argues for a line based on 'equidistance'. What is interesting is that while each country's approach would benefit them in the restricted Beaufort Sea area, when the now accessible Outer Beaufort is considered, each of their approaches actually works against them.

Transnational concerns
A separate, but related concern is the issue of control over the Northwest Passage, which, due to retreating polar ice caps, is increasingly being seen as a shipping shortcut between Asia and Europe. Ottawa says that the Northwest Passage is Canadian sovereign water, but Washington and several other nations regard it as an international passage.

Meanwhile, the EU recently angered the Arctic Council, a group of arctic nations charged with protecting the environment, when EU Vice-President Diana Wallis said that, in allowing deepwater oil exploration in the region, they were failing to protect the fragile environment.

None of these disputes are likely to result in military conflict, but they have certainly hampered relations in recent years. As nations become increasingly eager to and able to exploit the natural resources in the region, it seem many of them will gradually edge towards resolution.

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