Canada filed an addendum on Monday to extend its continental shelf in the Arctic, increasing significantly its overlaps with claims by Russia.
The addition is to Canada’s 2019 partial submission that claimed approximately 1.2 million square kilometres of the Arctic Ocean seabed and subsoil.
“This addendum to that partial submission regarding the outer limits of the continental shelf in respect of the Arctic Ocean covers an additional area of continental shelf extending beyond the limits provided for in that partial submission, encompassing the full length of the Central Arctic Plateau,” the government said in the Dec.19 document filed with the U.N.’s Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf.
The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) gives coastal states a 200 nautical mile continental shelf claim that allows countries the right to exploit resources in the seabed and subsoil of their respective areas.
The activities could be anything from deep seabed mining and fishing, to oil and gas exploration.
Canada has been working on gathering data to support its claims in the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans since 2003. But UNCLOS allows continental shelves to be extended if a state has scientific data to prove that particular underwater geological or geographical features are actually extensions of their continental shelves. Läs artikel