Meeting the Deadline: Canada's Arctic Submission to the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf

摘要

This article addresses several questions pertaining to Canada's extended continental shelf in the Arctic Ocean. How well is Canada positioned to meet the 2013 timeline? How are the current practices of the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf likely to impact Canada's submission? What concerns does Article 82 of the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea pose for Canada? The article concludes that Canada is well positioned to meet the 2013 deadline, but that the commission is ill-prepared to provide a timely response. Article 82 presents a particularly thorny problem as the details on which such arrangements must be based will not be fully known until commercial production begins, which is decades away.