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SVALBARD

Norway’s high court confirms Norwegian control of Arctic resources

Norway's highest court confirmed on Monday the Norwegian state's exclusive right to natural resources on the continental shelf around the strategically important Svalbard archipelago in the Arctic.

Pictured are homes on Svalbard.
A ruling has found Norway controls resources in and around Svalbard. Pictured are homes on Svalbard.

The case sets a precedent with major potential repercussions. The 15 judges of the Supreme Court unanimously rejected a lawsuit brought by the Latvian fishing company SIA North STAR, which had demanded the right to fish for snow crab on the continental shelf around Svalbard.

At the heart of the dispute are different interpretations of the Spitsbergen Treaty, the 1920 legal document governing the Svalbard archipelago. Beyond the question of snow crab — considered a delicacy in Asia — the case was seen as an important test to determine who would control other lucrative resources thought to lie beneath the continental shelf, like oil and gas or minerals.

Norway has long insisted it has exclusive rights. The Spitsbergen Treaty recognises “the full and absolute sovereignty of Norway” over Svalbard, but also allows nationals from other signatory countries to “enjoy equally the rights of fishing and hunting in the territories”.

As a result, Russia is able to maintain a mining community in the archipelago, located halfway between Europe’s mainland and the North Pole, in a region its Northern Fleet transits en route to the Atlantic.

But the wording of the treaty limits its geographic scope to the archipelago’s land and “territorial waters” — a concept that today denotes a maritime zone of 12 nautical miles but which was not specifically defined in 1920.

Treaty interpretation

According to SIA North STAR, the spirit of the treaty indicates that equal rights should apply to the entire continental shelf, a much wider zone, and a concept that also did not exist legally when the treaty was drawn up.

The Supreme Court found in favour of the Norwegian state, ruling that the wording of the treaty could not be subjected to an “extensible interpretation”.

“There has been no development in international law which would result in the notion of ‘territorial waters’ today including areas beyond territorial waters,” it wrote in its verdict.

Contrary to most other treaty signatories — more than 40 states, including Latvia, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States — Norway is almost the only one that uses a restrictive interpretation of the treaty. The issue has never been brought before an international court.

“We are disappointed but we are not really surprised by the verdict, this case has a lot of legal and political aspects,” the lawyer for the Latvian company, Hallvard Ostgard, told AFP.

He said he would like to see the case brought before the International Court of Justice, which only reviews cases brought by states. The Norwegian state said it was “satisfied” with the ruling.

“It’s an important national clarification for a question that has been raised on several occasions in Norwegian courts,” Foreign Minister Anniken Huitfeldt told AFP.

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POLITICS

Norway to quadruple aid to Palestinians amidst famine fears

The Norwegian government Tuesday proposed 1 billion kroner ($92.5 million) in aid to Palestinians this year as humanitarian agencies warn of a looming famine in the Gaza Strip.

Norway to quadruple aid to Palestinians amidst famine fears

Figures in the revised budget presented on Tuesday, show a roughly quadrupling of the 258 million kroner provided in the initial finance bill adopted last year.

“The urgent need of aid in Gaza is enormous after seven months of war,” Norway’s Minister of International Development, Anne Beathe Tvinnereim, said in a statement.

“The food situation in particular is critical and there is a risk of famine,” she added, criticising “an entirely man-made crisis” and an equally “critical” situation in the West Bank.

According to the draft budget, Norway intends to dedicate 0.98 percent of its gross national income to development aid this year.

The figures are still subject to change because the centre-left government, a minority in parliament, has to negotiate with other parties to get the texts adopted.

For his part, Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide again warned Israel against a large-scale military operation in Rafah, a city on the southern edge of the besieged Gaza Strip.

“It would be catastrophic for the population. Providing life-saving humanitarian support would become much more difficult and more dangerous,” Barth Eide said.

He added: “The more than 1 million who have sought refuge in Rafah have already fled multiple times from famine, death and horror. They are now being told to move again, but no place in Gaza is safe.”

As part of the response to the unprecedented Hamas attack on Israeli soil on October 7th, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he is determined to launch an operation in Rafah, which he considers to be the last major stronghold of the militant organisation.

Many in Rafah have been displaced multiple times during the war, and are now heading back north after Israeli forces called for the evacuation of the city’s eastern part.

On May 7th, Israeli tanks and troops entered the city’s east sending desperate Palestinians to flee north.

According to the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), “almost 450,000” people have been displaced from Rafah since May 6th.

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