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The connotation of benefiting and of burden-sharing both resonate in the debate on Arctic
governance. Non-Arctic states clearly voice their interest in the Arctic’s natural resources (cf. EU 2012:
9). Some of the Arctic’s significant deposits of natural resources have been exploited for many years,
at least on shore. The 2008 U.S.G.S. report, which estimates that one fifth of the Earth’s undiscovered
and recoverable resource deposits of oil and gas are located in the Arctic, further fuelled the nonArctic states’ interest. At the same time, non-Arctic states, in particular members of the European
Union, have also expressed concern as to the preservation of the fragile Arctic environment and to
the necessity of limiting the risk of pollution and other environmental destruction that increases
significantly with growing commercial and industrial activities, such as navigation and resource
exploitation (EU 2012: 6; see also Germany 2013: 1).
Furthermore, the idea of commonality has strong appeal because it implies natural relatedness to the
issue(s) at stake. However, as the distinction between an Arctic and a global perspective of
commonality reveals, the notion of relatedness is, in fact, very malleable. When conceived in a global
perspective, as by non-Arctic states, commonality suggests inclusiveness, converging interests and
coinciding concerns. Consequently, the interest in having a say appears as if it were a natural right: if
the Arctic’s development and protection is a global concern, its governance cannot be left to the Arctic
states alone. Non-Arctic states indeed mention the physical changes in the Arctic triggered by global
warming in the same breath as environmental risks caused by human activity in the Arctic, including
resource exploitation and shipping (cf. Germany 2013: 4; EU 2012: 2), which links the issue of global
warming to issues that, from a legal viewpoint, are not international issues to the same degree
(navigation and research) or even international issues at all (resource exploitation) (LOSC 1982: parts
V, VI, VII, XI, XIII). Associating global warming, which undeniably requires global action, with
various aspects of Arctic governance arguably intends to tie Arctic governance to global action.
The Arctic states’ approach, which seeks exclusiveness, is in stark contrast to this reasoning. Instead
of a general, all-encompassing commonality, these states advocate a specific, functional commonality.
Their understanding of commonality is selective, as affiliation to the community depends on a set of
conditions. Such agreed commonality led to the establishment of the Arctic Council, whose members
cooperate upon the (implicit) criterion that they are “Arctic States” given that part of their territories
stretch north of the Arctic Circle (Ottawa Declaration 1996).
The difficulty with such selective commonality is to identify a politically and legally convincing
specificity. While the ‘Arctic Eight’ have similar problems and interests, their Arctic nature does not
bestow upon them the same kind of functional commonality shared by the ‘Arctic Five’, i.e. the coastal
states (Canada, the United States, the Russian Federation, Norway and Denmark/Greenland). These
states’ commonality is indeed rooted in the law of the sea, which invests them with particular powers
and rights and, thus, a particular role in the Arctic. This was underscored by the Arctic Five at an
exclusive conference held in 2008 in Ilulissat (Ilulissat Declaration 2008). Concerned that the larger
Arctic community could be divided and weakened, the remaining three Arctic states disapproved of
the conference, as well as of the following Arctic Five conference held in 2010 in