The Arctic Environmental Security

Global warming and the increased human activity in High North are changing the Arctic environment causing melting of the ice cap and higher air temperatures.[1] The changes in the Arctic environment put under threat the whole Arctic ecosystem and rise serious environmental security concerns regarding the maintenance of the local and the planetary biosphere.

PERSISTENT ORGANIC POLLUTANTS

In recent decades the Arctic temperature has raised as much as 3.5ºC during winter months. Various persistent organic pollutants (POPs)[2] and other contaminants[3] are transported by air to Arctic were they are deposited in the ice through precipitation or deposition.[4] Contaminants are also carried to Arctic by ocean and river discharges. According to the 1997/98 AMAP assessment of pollution in Arctic, POPs were present in parts of the region where there was no human activity to explain the contamination. This piece of evidence confirmed that the northern polar region served as a sink for pollutants that had been transported over long distances.[5]

The Newly Emerging Arctic Security Regime

By the end of the Cold War, the Arctic entered into an era of substantial demilitarization and cooperation[1]. Both the US and Russia dissipated their Arctic forces, albeit the US remained the most military capable Arctic power[2]. Following the two superpowers, the other Arctic nations all took immediate steps to utilize the “peace dividend”.[3] Mutual reduction of the deployed forces and the elimination of the Arctic based exercises were at the forefront of their agenda.[4] 

During the 90s the Arctic affairs were monopolised by low politics issues, such as environmental protection and fishery patrols.[5] In fact, joint policies such as the Arctic Military Environmental Cooperation Program (AMEC)[6] among Norway, Russia and the US were launched as a result of the growing international environmental concern over the abandoned Russian nuclear submarines.[7] Cooperation among the Arctic nations was also broadened both by the establishment of the Arctic Environmental Protection Strategy and the Arctic Council.[8]

What factors are driving the new debate on ballistic missile defences?

Today there are few issues that are as thorny as that of ballistic missile defence (BMD). After years of living under the threat of that almost invincible weapon -the nuclear armed missile- BMD appears to be set to turn the technological cycle in favour of defence, with the potential therefore of turning the deterrence doctrine on its head and forcing countries to completely re-evaluate their options. The concept itself is far from new, and spans more than fifty years of research with frequent gaps and hiccups in between. The Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty –signed in 1972-, the US’s withdrawal from the Treaty –in June 2002-, and a series of political, technological, and strategic factors from 90’s to 10’s have shaped the whole BMD debate, which seems to point to the fact that BMD has reached a stage of maturity where even its most strident opponents accept that some sort of defence effort would continue for the foreseeable future.[1]

THE HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF THE ARCTIC TERRITORIAL DISPUTES UNDER THE REALIST PERSPECTIVE

The rivalry over the Arctic territory is undoubtedly a game of power. In such a game “new territories are conquered, held, assimilated, and serve as a starting point for new advance”.[1]  Territorial claims over the Arctic region are traced to 1920, where the littoral states began to claim territory based on the so called ‘sector principle’.[2] The latter appeared as a unique opportunity for expansion to the north. The Arctic states were claiming all land territory within sectors based on their coastline between the outermost limits towards neighbour states and straight longitude lines to the top at the North Pole.[3] However, the principle was not a rule of international law and found little support in states’ practice.[4] For more than sixty years, the Arctic states were engaging in sovereignty disputes for predominance mainly over the Northwest Passage, the Northeast Passage, the Beaufort Sea and the Northern Continental Shelf. Throughout that period the absence of a common regulatory mechanism made the balance of power in the region fragile, since the pressures from the anarchic international environment towards balancing and against cooperation were reinforced by the relativity of power.[5] It is noteworthy that throughout the Cold War realism was a “plea for statesmen and, above all, US and Soviet leaders, to recognize the need to coexist in a world of opposing interests and conflict”.[6]

CHEMICAL WEAPONS AND THE CHEMICAL WEAPONS CONVENTION (PART 2)

                     III.      The Destruction of Chemical Weapons 

One of the tasks, that the 2^nd Review Conference which took place on April 7-18, 2008, had to face was the fact that 11 years after its entry into force, many states haven’t destroyed their chemical weapons stockpiles yet. On the contrary they have requested and granted new deadlines[1].

Beyond any doubt the negotiations of the CWC underestimated some important factors regarding the destruction of chemical weapons, such as the huge financial burden, the technological complexity and politics of course. As a result, Russia and USA, which posses the 90% of the global declared stockpiles, failed to meet the deadline of 29^th April 2007. In addition, contrary to the rules of the convention which state clearly that the cost of the destruction must be borne by the possessor states, many states have asked for and received financial and technical assistance. Russia continues to be the biggest recipient of international assistance for destruction, despite the low progress, and in the case of Albania the total verification cost was covered.[2]

CHEMICAL WEAPONS AND THE CHEMICAL WEAPONS CONVENTION (PART 1)

Not many years ago in autumn of 2003 “a mere chemistry academy student in Moscow managed to design a home-made bomb and to plant it in the heart of Moscow, just a quarter mile away from the Kremlin. He claimed to be connected to radical neo-bolsheviks, which he hardly was”.[1] Nevertheless, an academic carrier is not necessary to manufacture a chemical weapon. In the age of globalization where the access to knowledge is just a web surfing, internet can provide any information. Anyone of us with access to knowledge of chemicals or randomly could mix readily available household products to create relatively dangerous concoctions.[2]

Beyond any doubt we live in a globalized environment, where cooperation among states and people from every corner of this world is at the forefront, establishing organizations such as the UN, singing treaties such as the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) and creating terrorist networks such as Al Qaeda. The question is: bearing in mind the above do we stand a chance to put an end in the proliferation and production of chemical weapons? Isolating chemical weapons characteristics from Bailey’s speech: easy, inexpensive, effective and difficult to detect, the issue of proliferation becomes dubious. How close we are in a world without chemical weapons, taking into consideration the forthcoming scientific and technological advancements in their production, detection, decontamination and destruction?