Overview

There are a variety of roles a cooperative Arctic environmental management regime should play that the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and domestic legal regimes fail to fill. First, a cooperative regime can encourage further scientific research and scientific cooperation, both of which are desperately needed. The world community must develop a more informed portrait of the region, its ecosystems and how specific components such as native fish populations might react to exogenous shocks including warming water temperatures. A stronger commitment to research on ice decline, including why it is occurring and its broad consequences, would allow scientists to create better projections of future ice melt and provide politicians the opportunity to shape policy off of these improved assumptions. Further geological surveys would also provide more accurate insight into the amount of recoverable oil, gas and mineral resources in the Arctic.