Publication Name

Alaska Dispatch

Author(s)

A. L. Parlow

In 2011, the first visit by a U.S. secretary of state to a meeting of the eight-nation Arctic Council elevated the Arctic in American diplomacy. It also underscored the region's geostrategic significance and the role that the U.S. wants to play amongst the other Arctic nations, each of which seeks to commercially exploit the Arctic's once-inaccessible resources.

The Arctic Council nations are all vying to both compete and cooperate in what Interior Secretary Ken Salazar called a “shared stake in a sustainable future.” In a 2012 visit to Norway, Secretary Hillary Clinton acknowledged U.S. support to advance Arctic development in a manner that is “economically sustainable and environmentally responsible.”

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On the day-to-day impacts that would help define the Arctic standard question, the Pew Charitable Trust, for example, with fourteen independent marine ecology experts, recently conducted an independent review of the USGS Report that identified gaps in Arctic Ocean research.

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Read the full article, Shell and Beyond: Toward an Arctic Standard in the New North, on the Alaska Dispatch website.