1. Territorial Disputes and Cross-Border Resource Management
Chapter 11
Territorial Disputes and Cross-Border Resource Management

2. Contents
11.1 Fuzzy boundaries, uncertain territories Inappropriate terms and place names Vague geometrical features Intricate human and cultural features Inconsistent or contradictory statements 11.2 Factors activating territorial disputes Resource scarcity Locational feature Domestic politics
Geopolitical competition
Cultural difference
Summary
11.3 Territorial disputes and resource management
Political economy of territorial disputes
Environmental impacts of armed conflicts
Roadmap to peaceful development
Case 11. Territorial claims in the Arctic

3. Some peculiarities of waterparting
They often lie well away from the zone of high peaks.
Along the waterparting may be lakes and swamps with outlets in both directions.
There may be streams and even large rivers which split and drain in two directions.
The waterparting may be extremely crooked.
Underground drainage may prevent ready determination of the waterparting.
Basins without drainage to the sea (due to evaporation) may bifurcate the waterparting.
In extreme flat regions the waterparting may be hard to locate.

4. When rivers serve as political boundaries:
(i) Is the river a suitable line of separation? (ii) Is it flowing between rock walls or is it shifting its bed or channel? (iii) Is there an obvious main channel? If not, which channel should contain the boundary? (iv) Are there islands of undermined sovereignty? (v) In different portions of the river, what line is most suitable as the boundary? (vi) To what stage of water should the description be referred? (vii) Will a permanent administration commission be needed?

5. Agreed maritime boundaries on the Arctic region include:
Canada-Demark (Greenland): continental shelf boundary agreed on December 17, 1973
Demark (Greenland)-Iceland: continental shelf and fisheries boundary agreed on November 11, 1997
Demark (Greenland)-Norway (Jan Mayen): continental shelf and fisheries boundary agreed on December 18, 1995 following adjudication by the International Court of Justice (ICJ)
Demark (Greenland)-Iceland-Norway (Jan Mayen): tripoint agreed on November 11, 1997
Demark (Greenland)-Norway (Svalbard): continental shelf and fisheries boundary agreed on February 20, 2006
Iceland-Norway (Jan Mayen): fisheries boundary following the 200 nm limit of Iceland’s EEZ agreed on May 28, 1980; continental shelf boundary and joint zone agreed on October 22, 1981
Norway-Russia: maritime boundary in Varangerfjord partially delimited February 15, 1957 and extended July 11, 2007; maritime boundary in the Barents Sea and Arctic Ocean signed on September 15, 2010 and entered into force on 7 July 2011
Russia-USA: single maritime boundary agreed on June 1, 1990

7. Notes to Fig. 11.1:
The depicted potential areas of continental shelf beyond 200 nautical miles (nm) for Canada and the USA are theoretical maximum claims assuming that none of the states claims continental shelf beyond median lines with neighboring states where maritime boundaries have not been agreed.
The delimitation of the continental shelf beyond 200 nm in the northeast Atlantic Ocean is set out in the “Agreed Minutes on the Delimitation of the Continental Shelf beyond 200 Nautical Miles between the Faroe Islands, Iceland and Norway in the Southern Part of the Banana Hole of the Northeast Atlantic” of 20 September 2006.
A summary of the Recommendations of the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf in regard to the Submission made by Norway in respect of areas in the Arctic Ocean, the Barents Sea and the Norwegian Sea can be found at
Summaries of Russia’s Arctic Ocean submissions to the CLCS are available at and
Norway and the Soviet Union agreed a partial maritime boundary in Varangerfjord in 1957 but for many years were unable to agree on the alignment of their maritime boundary in the Barents Sea
Canada argues that the maritime boundary in the Beaufort Sea was delimited in the 1825 treaty between Great Britain and Russia defining the boundary between Alaska and the Yukon as following the 141° W meridian “as far as the frozen ocean”.
The Eastern Special Area lies more than 200 nm from the baseline of the USA but less than 200 nm from the baseline of Russia.
Under a treaty signed in February 1920, Norway has sovereignty over the Svalbard archipelago and all islands between latitudes 74° and 81° north and longitudes 10° and 35° east.
Under the 1981 continental shelf boundary agreement between Iceland and Norway, each country is entitled to a 25% share in petroleum activities on the other’s continental shelf within a 45,470 km² area between latitudes 68° N and 70° 35’ N and longitudes 6° 30’ W and 10° 30’ W.
Canada claims that the waters of its Arctic archipelago are historic internal waters, and has enclosed them within a system of straight baselines.