Rotterdam port welcomes first ship via the Arctic route

I paddled in through customs when I was in the boundary waters. You normally don't inspect ships cargo that is just passing through your waters, unless you suspect contraband. We do have permitting, only letting certain types of vessels, getting their cargo description, etc. I don't think any of this shipping has violated canadian sovereignty. What I have heard about so far goes through Russia.

That whole european/Russian thing of claiming terratory seems rediculous. Claiming the north pole is a lot less bad than say france claiming vietnam is a colony.

If you have a secret military submarine that you don't want the enemy to know about well, you don't inform. That just is part of having a big military. You don't inform the enemies, and Canada/NATO etc have treaties to allow those subs in there waters.

 

Wasn't the global warming caused the ice age to go away.
The climate is dynamic and it can go either way in a life time, human.

 

Of course. I thought the NorthWest passage was close enough that it would be relevant to the thread. Any idea what the Russian's 'customs' requirements are? Surely there's no dispute of territory...?

 

AFAIK they need permits, but don't need cargo inspected in customs.

Climate change shortcut: Chinese cargo ship attempts to sail from China to Europe via Northeast Passage | Miami Newsday

The route also hits US teratorial waters, but these are waters shared between alaska and russia, so I don't think they need US permits.​

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International regulation defining international waters would seem to be a straitforward thing (pun semi-intended) but they're not really.
Back in the really-really old days there was a three (statute) mile limit on territorial waters. They didn't just pluck this number out of their diplomatic derrieres. Three miles was about as far as you could shoot a cannonball, and it's elegantly simple.
You kill it.
You eat it.
Or.....you defend it. You keep it.
So...the only thing left is to negotiate a quasi-equitable right of passage for straits and other restricted waterways.
Since then....we have a 12-mile limit, various EEZ's, and some nations just plain ignore all of the treaties, but it all still boils down to international agreements that pretty much guarantee the innocent passage of vessels outside of three miles.
When I was in GTMO for a year, the US Navy had a big problem keeping civilian traffic a comfortable (for us) distance away from the detention facility because the LAW says that you have to allow for that innocent passage.
I remember that cruise ships used to slow down so that all of the passengers could gawk and take photos so much so that I used to imagine that the ship would list to port (or starboard) with all of the passengers on the shoreward side.
Since the U.S. Navy has used 'innocent passage' for over two hundred years to pretty much go wherever the heck they want to go (or more aptly COULD go....) it was interesting to see this same principle used against them.
You should put air quotes around innocent passage, since for years our good neighbors to the north have semi-protested the U.S. Navy's (alleged) policy of pretty much ignoring their territorial claims when it comes to the passage of submerged vessels, which nobody really claims as innocent passage regardless of purpose (sometimes it was oceanography after all... )

Canada, like Russia, can claim all of the territorial waters that they want to, but since we ARE talking about innocent passage in the case of the NW passage and not warships on maneuvers or mineral exploitation, I personally believe that their protestations will fall on internationally deaf ears.

What WILL be very interesting is to see how each of the three affected nations will allow for the law to play out. My personal guess is that Russia will be much more able to restrict innocent passage....since everything will boil down to whether or not somebody will want to try them out on the open seas.

NOTHING new under the sun.

 

So, it all comes down whoever has the most weapons, and 'rights' mean nothing?

Sigh. Will we ever evolve?

 

From what?
Into what?

"Rights" are a subjective thing, and they usually MUST be defended the same way that they're denied, which is by force.

 

Short-sighted, selfish barbarians who rule by force.

Enlightened, respectful, cooperative beings who care for their environment....you're laughing *with* me, right?

 

Yup!

 

huh.

If you were thinking canada had the right to stop all ships, and inspect and sieze their cargo, even if they were innocent and just passing through, it would need a lot of might to enforce this. Such was the case of the barbary states versus the US shipping. Thomas Jefferson sent gun boats to stop the piracy that was encouraged from those states.

But no, if Canada acts with in its rights, the US and other allies will defend it with their might. It all depends on what canada wants to do. Do they want to act as pirates for the freight moving through, if so they need a serious navy, and canada's allies will not support it. Do you see harm coming from US, French, and British submarines not declaring routes in claimed canadian waters? If so the canadians can set up stations to monitor and tell its allies that it is now illegal. The canadian government has taken no action to restrict these things, although it would be in its right to do so. It will take some cash and good will but no warships.

 

Huh.

Controlling territorial waters is not piracy, and there is no such thing as innocently 'just passing' through territorial waters without permission.

 

Which explains ice loss in the Arctic.Its not from global warming .Mostly its from Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation warm currents and storm winds moving the ice south .
If global warming were causing ice loss then Antarctica wouldnt have record high levels as it does today.
AMO has shifted cooler so we can expect more Arctic sea ice in the future.
Which also explains the dramatic increase in Arctic sea ice since 2012.

 

Concur!

However (comma!) what are "territorial" waters?
What happens when your pre-conceived notion of proper territorial waters slam up against geography in restricted waterways such as the straits of Hormuz, Gibraltar, Malacca?

There was this Michael Jackson impersonator who said that "... the Gulf of Sidra a closed bay and part of our territorial waters."
He's no longer with is.
He has joined others who have tried to enforce territorial claims without the physical grunt to get that job done.
If you want to see his Navy, you'll need to charter a boat with a glass bottomed hull.

Even the modern 12-mile limit isn't as cut and dry as one might imagine. They've been tinkering with "territorial waterways" for a while now.
Like...since the 1700's
The latest iteration from the good folks in the UN (UNCLOS) became effective in the 1990s. Some interpretations of this treaty lend credence to Libia's claim that these are (and were) legally 'territorial' but then.....UNLIKE Canada and Russia, we never ratified this treaty.
United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

So.....
If the Canadians have (or think they have) a legitimate beef with their territorial waters, they can indeed file a complaint with the UN! If this complaint is deemed valid, then the UN can act with unbridled fury by sending a VERY angry protest with their "VERY angry protest" stationery.

YMMV!

 

So, ETC, if I'm understanding this philosophical worldview of yours correctly, it's basically 'the biggest donkey wins'? As in...what good are rules and rights without violence, or at least the implied threat of it, to back them up?

 

I'm not using silver bullets yet, and I know we're all in this together. It's alright.

 

As Bob has already pointed out, it's hardly "my world view."
FWIW, I believe in innocent passage.
I don't think that you should be taxed for shipping your goods on the world's oceans by pirates or by nations that won the lucky geography club. Tax or Tribute?
You be the judge...but either way, I do not set my nation's commerce policy other than the fact that I try to be as informed a voter as I can be, and I not only vote in EVERY election but I give feedback to my local, state, and federal representatives.
In short, MY world view doesn't count for CRAP.
America's exceptionalism lies not in our strength.
We were exceptional loooooong before the UK relinquished its primacy in influencing the world, and we were exceptional back before World War Once, when the "world leaders" scoffed at us as a provincial, backward nation.

We never have been, nor ever will be anything close to perfect, but I would invite the "Hate America First" crowd to do a stare and compare between America and saaaaaay......Putin's Russia, or maybe Jinping/Keqiang's Red China.
Those places might scoff at the Notion of American as being exceptional (nobody ever said uniquely so btw....) however (comma!)
Would you want to live in Moscow if you were in the LGBT community?
How are women's rights expressed in Red China?
If you had to be incarcerated....which country would you chose?

Our form of government is working pretty well so far. Far from perfect though it may be parts of it have proliferated far enough afield that the monarchy that used to rule OVER US recently gave US a refresher course in how a represenitive government ought to work.

Study History,
Sometimes, the biggest a$$hole does NOT win.
Sometimes....it's the a$$hole with the biggest idea.

Those who beat their swords into plowshares usually end up plowing for those who kept their swords.

 

Sorry, ETC, I had not meant that to be so personal. I said it with a smirk on my face and a teasing glint in my eye - I guess not enough of that came through in the words I chose.

My beef is not with you, or whether you hold one worldview or another. Nor is it against your country. It's against militarism, and the belief that it's all that keeps us safe and sound.