ABSTRACT
This paper describes shortly the laws that give all countries which have signed the Svalbard Treaty the right to carry out mining on Svalbard, the dimension on the Russian an the Norwegian coal mining on the archipelago, how will a new Report from the Government to the Parliament and a new environmental law, which both are to be finished late this year, influence the existing mining activity and what can be said about the future of the exploration and mining operations on the islands.
