Columbia International Affairs Online: Policy Briefs

CIAO DATE: 12/2012

Canada-US Arctic Marine Corridors and Resource Development

John Higginbotham, Andrea Charron, James Manicom

November 2012

Centre for International Governance Innovation

Abstract

The shrinking Arctic ice cap is creating unprecedented geophysical change in the circumpolar region, a trend that is very likely to continue. Together, this “great melt” and the delineation of extended national economic zones afford increased access to economic resources in the Arctic Ocean. Intense activities in commercial, investment, diplomatic, legal, scientific and academic sectors abound in the new Arctic, but the region’s long-term significance is only gradually penetrating North American public consciousness. Media reports such as the recent, virtually ice-free trans-polar transit of a Chinese icebreaker through the Russian Northern Sea Route, or the transit of the Northwest Passage by a large cruise ship, are only the tip of the proverbial economic iceberg.