Greeny News

U.S., Canada, Russia, Denmark and Norway are always embroiled in disputes over boundaries on land and at sea

Two nations on opposite sides of the military alliance of NATO to share - Russia and Norway - have signed an agreement on who owns what, signed in the Barents Sea. But there are many other territorial disputes going on - some good friends.

An area of ??great interest to oil drilling - oppose the United States and Canada still on the setting of boundaries in the Beaufort Sea.

Similarly, Canada has a dispute with Denmark over the ownership of Hans Island and where the control line (whose sovereignty remains with Denmark) in the strait between Greenland and Ellesmere Iceland should be taken to solve.

But even more important in a world of melting ice is the control over the Northwest Passage. Canada insists that it has sovereignty over the sea and therefore asked about their use. The U.S. is seen as a potential area of ??open water that there is an automatic right of passage for its warships.

The Canadians were incensed when the Americans increased the oil tanker Manhattan through the canal in 1969 followed by the icebreaker Polar Sea in 1985, drove both, without asking for Canadian permission.

The Svalbard Archipelago, north-west of Norway, already signed by an international treaty in 1920 is was. But that does not stop, friends such as Great Britain and Norway, with disagreements over the way the contract has been interpreted.

Norway was given sovereignty and responsibility for the management of fishing rights and the protection of the environment.

But it should also give other signatories to the Treaty - Russia, the USA, China and Britain - to use the same rights Svalbard 's natural resources 4 miles on the Continental Shelf. The problem is that Norway does not respect the archipelago, as they have their own shelf, the area of ??conflict. A big oil discovery off Svalbard would undoubtedly trigger a result.

In the meantime, the U.S. and Russia still disagreement about the exact sea borders from the Bering Sea into the Arctic Ocean. It has signed a deal with the former Soviet Union, but Russia has refused to ratify it.

All Arctic states have a big disagreement over who owns the bits of the continental shelf in the Arctic Ocean, especially the 1800 km Lomonosov Ridge. Claims submitted under the Law of the Sea Convention.