ABSTRACT
The broad aim of this book, as one in a series partly concerned with the management of particular seas, is to look at the management of the natural resources of the Barents Sea. As the object of a study in regional marine resource management, the Barents Sea (see Map 1.1) is unusual in a number of respects. First, it has only two riparian states, Norway and the USSR, which for most of the time since 1945 have belonged to opposing military alliances. Second, the development of a proper regime for managing the natural resources of the Barents Sea has been greatly affected and hindered by two long-standing unresolved legal questions. The first of these is the location of the boundary between the maritime zones of Norway and the USSR: without an agreed boundary the proper management of resources is clearly made more difficult, and there is obviously more potential for conflict and friction between the riparian states. The other important unresolved legal question is whether the Treaty concerning the archipelago of Spitsbergen of 1920 (with its regme of equality of treatment for all its parties in the exploitation of the resources of Svalbard)1 extends to the maritime zones of Svalbard beyond its territorial sea. If the Treaty does so extend, then all forty or so states party to it will have an equal right to exploit the resources of those zones: on the other hand, if the Treaty does not so extend, the exploitation of those resources will be the sole prerogative of Norway. Finally, the Barents Sea is unusual in the degree to which military and strategic issues influence the management of its natural resources: such issues also have a very important bearing on the possible resolution of the two legal questions just referred to.
