Good Example Of Critical Thinking On An Analysis Of Resource Rights In Arctic

Summary

Analysis
This is an extremely foreign concept in our modern society. We tend to think of ownership, or the “rights” to an area as finite, and demanding single ownership; but property that is not territorially possessed belongs to the global community, and the author’s suggestion would allow that community to make decisions as a group, in such a way that by tacit consent, the “stalemate” can be avoided, and the Arctic’s resources can be explored in a way that protects both the countries involved in the claim, and the best interest of the land itself. In short, the Arctic remains global property, which countries can remove resources from individually, rather than becoming a territory which is owned and controlled by a single government.
It is clear to see how the author’s plan for creating binding rights, generating a compromise and protecting that compromises integrity could hold great promise for the future of natural resources in uninhabited and territorialized areas of the globe. It provides a means for the land to remain commonly held by all nations, while allowing those with the interest or the need to access the natural resources held there to harvest a fair portion of the Arctic’s riches, while protecting the land. Unfortunately, even if the theory is both sound and promising the reality is that there is no precedence or legal scaffold to support such a political arrangement at this time. We are globally underprepared to take a communal view of natural resources, and foreign policy would have to undergo major change in order for the nations to be prepared to engage in the kind of cooperative bargaining outlined in the author’s work.