Marine Scientific Research Arctic. Arctic Perspectives on the Law of the Sea Convention

Essay from the year 2015 in the subject Law - European and International Law, Intellectual Properties, , language: English, abstract: This short essay introduces the reader to the aspects of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, often simply referred to as the Law of the Sea Convention (LOSC) which are often overlooked but which play a crucial role already today and which are bound to become more important in the future. Marine scientific research is no longer merely of academic interest. Oil, gas, fish and in the near future also natural resources at the sea bed are important economic factors. In particular in the Arctic Ocean, which is becoming more accessible due to climate change and the fast decline of the sea ice cover, competing claims to the sea provide new challenges. These conflicts include the territorial dispute between Denmark (which despite Greenland's increased autonomy retains control over the island's foreign affairs) and Canada over Hans Island, At the time the 1982 Convention was drafted, the idea that commercial mining of the Deep Sea Bed was just around the corner. While the technological development immediately after the adoption of the Law of the Sea Convention took longer than had been thought initially, advances in recent years have made deep sea mining a more realistic possibility. Indeed, several claims have been staked around the world. A distinction has to be made between claims to the Continental Shelf (which is not to be confused with the Deep Sea Bed) as an extension of the sovereignty of the state over the land on one hand and usage rights in parts of the Deep Sea Bed on the other.

Docent Dr. Stefan Kirchner, Assessor jur., MJI is Associate Professor for Arctic Law at the Arctic Centre of the University of Lapland in Rovaniemi, Finland, and Adjunct Professor of Fundamental and Human Rights at the same university. His work focuses on the crossroads of human rights, the environment, shared areas, in particular the oceans and outer space, and international business and trade. Prior to joining the Arctic Governance Research Group at the Arctic Centre he taught public law, international law and civil rights as Visiting Professor for Transitional Justice at the University of Turin (Italy), University Lecturer and Associate Professor for Fundamental and Human Rights, with a Special Focus on Indigenous Rights, at the Faculty of Law of the University of Lapland in Rovaniemi (Finland), Assistant Professor for International Law and Associate Professor for the Law of the Sea at Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas (Lithuania), scientific employee in the Department of Public Law of the Faculty of Law of Georg-August-University in Göttingen (Germany), and Visiting Lecturer at the Institute of International Relations at Tars Shevchenko National University in Kyiv (Ukraine) and at the Faculty of Law Justus-Liebig-University in Giessen (Germany). Formerly a practising lawyer (Rechtsanwalt) in Germany for over a decade, he has worked on international trade law, corporate law, the law of the sea and human rights law, including cases at the German Federal Constitutional Court (Bundesverfassungsgericht), the German Federal Supreme Court (Bundesgerichtshof), the German Federal Administrative Court (Bundesverwaltungsgericht) and the European Court of Human Rights. In addition, he served as legal agent for Germany's Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency, working on international shipping law, oil pollution and seafarer training issues. Dr. Kirchner is active in a number of professional organizations and is a regular reviewer for a number of academic publishing houses and academic journals, a member of editorial boards for several international academic journals and has written over one hundred academic articles and book chapters. He has been an evaluator of research projects for the Norwegian Academy of Sciences and Letters. Prior to his legal career he worked as a freelance journalist in Germany, as an emergency medical technician (Rettungssanitäter) for the German Red Cross and as a factory worker for a company producing transformers.