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Recent news reports state that global warming and the shrinking Arctic icecaps are opening new sea lanes and making barren islands suddenly very valuable. In fact, the international community might experience a new race of exploration, conquest and acquisition for this "new world" -- these newly available lands and sea routes. Conflicts could arise over shipping lanes, islands, fish stocks, minerals and oil that are now becoming accessible and commercially exploitable.
Governments are even now engaged in asserting their sovereignty over these areas and assets. Canada, Denmark and the United States are already involved in diplomatic disputes over these issues. For example, Canada and Denmark have sent diplomats and warships to plant their flags on tiny Hans Island near northwestern Greenland.
In 1984, Denmark's Minister for Greenland Affairs landed on the island in a helicopter and raised the Danish flag, buried a bottle of brandy, and left a note that said "Welcome to the Danish Island."
Canada was not amused by this assertion of Danish sovereignty. In 2005, the Canadian Defense Minister and troops landed on the island and hoisted the Canadian flag. Denmark lodged an official protest. In addition, Canada, Russia and Denmark are claiming waters all the way to the North Pole.
Moreover, the United States and Canada are disputing Canadian claims that the emerging Northwest Passage sea route is in its territory. The U.S. insists the waters are neutral and open to all but Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper states that he will place military icebreakers in the area "to assert our sovereignty and take action to protect our territorial integrity."
This kind of conduct is nothing new. It mirrors exactly the actions taken by European and American governments in the 15th -- 20th centuries in their race to claim the lands and the assets of the New World of the Americas, Africa, and other areas.
That race was conducted under the international legal principle known today as the Doctrine of Discovery. Under various papal bulls, Spain and Portugal could establish claims to the lands of indigenous, non-Christian, non-European peoples by merely "discovering" the lands.
Spanish, Portuguese, and later English and French explorers engaged in numerous types of Discovery rituals upon encountering new lands. The hoisting of their flag and the cross and leaving evidence that they had been there was part of the Discovery process.
In 1776-78, for example, Captain Cook established English claims to British Columbia by leaving English coins in buried bottles. In 1774, he erased Spanish marks of ownership and possession in Tahiti and replaced them with English ones. Upon learning of this, Spain dispatched explorers to restore its marks of possession. Furthermore, in 1742-49, French military expeditions buried lead plates throughout the Ohio country to reassert the French claims of discovery dating from 1643. The plates stated that they were "a renewal of possession."
Americans also engaged in discovery rituals. The Lewis & Clark expedition marked and branded trees and rocks in the Pacific Northwest to prove the American presence and claim to the region. They also left a memorial or memo at Fort Clatsop in March 1806 and gave copies to Indians to deliver to any whites that might arrive to prove the U.S. presence and claim to the Northwest.
See more stories tagged with: global warming, climate change, arctic
Robert J. Miller is a law professor at Lewis & Clark Law School, the chief justice of the Grand Ronde Tribe, and an Eastern Shawnee. He is the author of Native America: Discovered and Conquered.
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