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Arctic Yearbook 2015
from the Federal Republic of Germany, France, Japan, Poland and the UK took part in the
abovementioned gathering during the SCAR meeting in San Diego, due to the USSR position and to
the disappointment of leading scientists from those countries, further talks continued without them.
Hence, to clarify the situation on the founding process of IASC, they asked their governments to take
action and in March 1989 France, Germany, the Netherlands and the UK formally approached the
Arctic countries with a ‘Note Verbale’ to explain their policy on the IASC (Rogne et al. 2015: 22).
The note drew significant attention of the Arctic eight and resulted in a temporary standstill of the
negotiations as it occurred that there was no consensus among Arctic states on the role of non-Arctic
countries in the new organization. Both Canada and the USSR strongly opposed participation of nonArctic states on an equal basis and argued that “the founding articles of IASC must reflect the broader
range of scientific interests and responsibilities of the Arctic countries” (Note Verbale Canadian
Foreign Office Ottawa in: Rogne et al. 2015). On the contrary, the United States was in favour of the
exclusively scientific body without any governmental control or distinction between the scientific
organizations from Arctic and non-Arctic states. This point illustrates well the degree of politicization
of the whole process, where despite IASC being a non-governmental organization, “representatives
of national governments played a central role in its creation” (Young 1992: 40-41, draft in: Keskitalo
2004).
IASC Founding Meeting in Resolute Bay, Canada, August 1990.
To find a way out and to move forward, representatives of three states (Canada, USA and the USSR)
met in December 1989 in Moscow and came up with a new proposal for a structure and founding
articles of IASC. To find compromise on the interests of both sides, it was agreed that next to the
IASC Council, i.e. the highest decision-making body of the organization, where all the member
countries – both Arctic and non-Arctic ones – would enjoy equal rights, the Regional Board would be
Smieszek