Arctic Ocean Stewardship

While the context of ‘sovereignty, sovereign rights and jurisdictions’ was emphasised by the five Arctic coastal states in the 2008 Ilulissat Declaration, they also identified the Arctic Ocean as ‘a unique ecosystem, which the five coastal states have a stewardship role in protecting’. ¹ This ‘stewardship role’ is a shared statement about the central responsibilities of the five Arctic coastal states to manage human activities in the Arctic Ocean. However, Arctic Ocean stewardship is in the interests of all humankind, with vision decades to centuries into the future. Such stewardship carries with it an obligation to address the ‘institutional interplay’ ² of rights and responsibilities in the Arctic Ocean.