Russia seeks U.N. approval on claim to Arctic territory

The Russian government on Tuesday announced that it had delivered “ample scientific data” to the United Nations to back its claim to more than 460,000 square miles of Arctic territory and the wealth of energy, gems and precious metals believed to lie within.

Moscow also is asserting ownership of the emerging Northern Sea Route, the potentially lucrative seasonal shipping route opening above its northern coastline as Arctic ice melts.

Russia was the first to claim the Arctic sea shelf as sovereign territory in a thwarted bid in 2002, but the United States, Canada, Denmark and Norway also are pursuing jurisdiction over seabed in the Arctic, where a quarter of the world’s remaining oil and gas reserves may be embedded.

The 1982 U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea establishes the right of countries to exercise sovereignty over an exclusive economic zone extending 200 nautical miles from their recognized shoreline borders. In cases where the continental shelf extends beyond that limit, the law of the sea allows a country to claim dominion up to 350 nautical miles from its shores.

In the documents submitted to the U.N. on Monday, Russia argues that the undersea territory it seeks to add to its recognized borders doesn’t fall under the 350-mile limit because the seabed and its resources are “natural components of the continent,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

The statement said Russia expects the U.N. to begin considering its claim at a fall meeting of the U.N. Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf. But a U.N. spokesman, Farhan Haq, said that the commission isn’t expected to gather in full until early next year and that in the meantime, Russia’s submitted charts, maps and research data were being circulated among the 193 member nations of the world body for review.

Russia first laid claim to the Arctic sea shelf in 2002, but its application for U.N. recognition was rejected on the grounds that Moscow hadn’t provided sufficient evidence of the country’s right to the territory.

“To justify Russia’s rights in this area, ample scientific data collected during many years of Arctic research has been used,” the Foreign Ministry statement said, alluding to exploratory missions and development of Arctic research facilities and floating ice stations going back to the 1930s.

Russia’s Ministry of Natural Resources estimates the Arctic sea shelf contains up to 5 billion tons of untapped oil and natural gas reserves worth as much as $30 trillion.

The Russian Defense Ministry has flexed its muscle over the contested Arctic riches with a massive military exercise in March that deployed 40,000 troops, 50 warships and more than 100 combat aircraft into and over the Barents Sea. The Kremlin also announced last year in its revised strategic defense doctrine that a new Northern Fleet is being developed to protect its Arctic resources.

Retreating Arctic sea ice has opened up a summer shipping route across northern Russia that can cut a cargo vessel’s sailing time from Europe to Asia by nearly two weeks, raising the prospect of new income streams for Russia if its national claim to the Northern Sea Route is recognized by the United Nations. Russia boasts the world’s most powerful icebreaker fleet and has plans to expand its nuclear-powered vessels to assist foreign cargo ships through the passage that remains icebound for much of the year.