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Abstract
In the legal conceptualization of space, cartography has always been a fundamental tool narrating, representing, generating, or even (re)claiming territory. In this article, we examine the relationship between cartography and international law by looking at different cartographic representations of the area covering the disputed “Northwest Passage” (NWP). In an attempt to discuss how mapping may spring from different ontological assumptions of space among sovereign states and Indigenous communities, this article is devoted to investigations concerning different forms of law–space entanglements drawn from 12 different maps pertinent to the NWP, aiming to critically reconsider the very essence of law applicable to the region. The article supports the argument that approaching the juridical architecture of the Arctic from a pluralistic perspective that also accounts for non-Western visions of space may help as a valuable conceptual lens to rethink “territory” and revisit existing legal realities.
Acknowledgments
The article is partly based on the piece “Law of the Sea in the Kinocene,” presented by Apostolos Tsiouvalas at the NCLOS Conference 2022 with the theme Ocean Space. Research carried out for this article was partially supported by OCEANGOV, a project funded by the Norwegian Research Council/Norges Forskningsråd, project no. 315163. The authors thank Nikolaos Dimitrakopoulos for his research assistance.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Marie-Laure Ryan, Kenneth Foote and Maoz Azaryahu, Narrating Space/Spatializing Narrative: Where Narrative Theory and Geography Meet (Ohio State University Press, 2017), 44.
2 The much-contested concept of “territory” is generally used to denote the derivative form of space denoting a produced juridico-political area controlled by a certain kind of power rather than merely a geographical one. See Stuart Elden, The Birth of Territory (University of Chicago Press, 2013), 9.
3 Ryan, Foote and Azaryahu, note 1, 38.
4 Elden, note 2, 324.
5 William T. Worster, “Maps Serving as Facts of Law in International Law” (2018) 33 Connecticut Journal of International Law 279, 293–301.
6 The concept of “striation” is particularly discussed in Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia (Bloomsbury, 2021), 563.
7 Doreen B. Massey, Space, Place, and Gender (University of Minnesota Press, 1994), 107.
8 Henry Jones, “Lines in the Ocean: Thinking With the Sea About Territory and International Law” (2016) 4 London Review of International Law 307, 308; see also John B. Harley and Paul Laxton, The New Nature of Maps: Essays in the History of Cartography (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001), 59.
9 Apostolos Tsiouvalas, “Recalcitrant Materialities of a Liminal Ocean: Deconstructing the ‘Arctic Nomos’” (2022) XIV Yearbook of Polar Law 76, 80.
10 Philip E. Steinberg, “Sovereignty, Territory, and the Mapping of Mobility: A View from the Outside” (2009) 99 Annals of the Association of American Geographers 467, 470.
11 John Agnew, “The Territorial Trap: The Geographical Assumptions of International Relations Theory” (1994) 1 Review of International Political Economy 53, 77.
12 Friedrich Kratochwil, "Of Maps, Law, and Politics: An Inquiry into the Changing Meaning of Territoriality" (2011) 03 DIIS Working Paper 1, 8.
13 Jordan Branch, “Mapping the Sovereign State: Technology, Authority, and Systemic Change” (2011) 65 International Organization 1, 1–36; see also Christopher R. Rossi, Remoteness Reconsidered: The Atacama Desert and International Law (University of Michigan Press, 2021).
14 Christopher Tomlins, “The Legal Cartography of Colonization, the Legal Polyphony of Settlement: English Intrusions on the American Mainland in the Seventeenth Century” (2001) 26 Law & Social Inquiry 315, 316.
15 Ibid, 362.
16 Kratochwil, note 12, 26.
17 Glen Sean Coulthard, Red Skin, White Masks: Rejecting the Colonial Politics of Recognition (University of Minnesota Press, 2014), 100.
18 Usha Natarajan and Kishan Khoday, “Locating Nature” in Usha Natarajan and Julia Dehm (eds), Locating Nature—Making and Unmaking International Law (Cambridge University Press, 2022) 37, 38.
19 Come Carpentier de Gourdon, “The First America Vs ‘America First’: The Latin Alternative in the ‘New World’” (2005) 9 World Affairs: The Journal of International Issues 11, 11–30.
20 Thomas J. McGurk and Sébastien Caquard, “To What Extent Can Online Mapping Be Decolonial? A Journey Throughout Indigenous Cartography in Canada” (2020) 64 The Canadian Geographer/Le Géographe Canadien 49, 51; see also Kratochwil, note 12, 26.
21 Tomlins, note 14, 323.
22 Emily Jacobi, "Indigenous Cartography & Decolonizing Mapmaking" 22 June 2020, Technology Solidarity at: https://medium.com/technology-solidarity/indigenous-cartography-decolonizing-mapmaking-a6357112d7a7 (accessed 26 January 2023).
23 Tomlins, note 14, 316.
24 John B. Harley, “Deconstructing the Map” (1989) 26 Cartographica 1, 1–20.
25 W. Østreng, K. M. Eger, B. Fløistad et al., Shipping in Arctic Waters: A Comparison of the Northeast, Northwest and Trans Polar Passages (Springer, 2013), 22.
26 Lawrence R. Mudryk, Jackie Dawson, Stephen E. L. Howell et al., “Impact of 1, 2 and 4 °C of Global Warming on Ship Navigation in the Canadian Arctic” (2021) Nature Climate Change 673, 673–679.
27 See “The Inuit Circumpolar Council Political Universe,” Inuit Circumpolar Council at: https://www.inuitcircumpolar.com/about-icc/icc-political-universe (accessed 26 January 2023).
28 See, among others, Mia M. Bennett, Wilfrid Greaves, Rudolf Riedlsperger et al., “Articulating the Arctic: Contrasting State and Inuit Maps of the Canadian North” (2016) 52 Polar Record 630, 630–644.
29 Ibid.
30 The Secretary of State for External Affairs, Joe Clark, in support of Canada’s argument about the status of the passage claimed that “These islands are joined, and not divided, by the waters between them. They are bridged for most of the year by ice. From time immemorial Canada’s Inuit people have used and occupied the ice as they have used and occupied the land.” Referring to Joe Clark, Secretary of State for External Affairs, Statement on Sovereignty, September 10, 1985, reprinted in Franklyn Griffiths, Politics of the Northwest Passage (McGill–Queen’s University Press, 1987), 269–270
31 Nikolas M. Rajkovic, “The Visual Conquest of International Law: Brute Boundaries, the Map, and the Legacy of Cartogenesis” (2018) 31 Leiden Journal of International Law 267, 271.
32 We hereby borrow the term “geophilosophies” from Peters to denote the geographically informed modes of thinking; see Kiberley Peters, “The Territories of Governance: Unpacking the Ontologies and Geophilosophies of Fixed to Flexible Ocean Management, and Beyond” (2020) 375 Royal Society 1814.
33 From the ancient Greek times until the late 15th century, most educated Europeans were cognizant of the fact that the world (at the time consisting of Europe, Asi,a and North Africa) is a sphere and thus its far left and far right margins should connect at a certain point. See Margaret Small, “From Jellied Seas to Open Waterways: Redefining the Northern Limit of the Knowable World" (2007) 21 (2) Renaissance Studies 315; even earlier, in the eighth century BC, Hesiod argued that the extreme limits of land, sea, and air all meet. See Hesiod, Theogony (Penguin Classics 1971), 736–742.
34 Donald R. Rothwell and Tim Stephens, The International Law of the Sea (Hart, 2016), 2
35 See, in particular, Pope Alexander’s third bull Inter Caetera (4 May 1493), which granted to the monarchs of Aragon and Castile all lands of the "west and south" of a pole-to-pole line 100 leagues west. See “AD 1493: The Pope Asserts Rights to Colonize, Convert, and Enslave” in Native Voices Native Peoples’ Concepts of Health and Illness at: https://www.nlm.nih.gov/nativevoices/timeline/171.html#:∼:text=convert%2C%20and%20enslave-,AD%201493%3A%20The%20Pope%20asserts%20rights%20to%20colonize%2C%20convert%2C,its%20Native%20peoples%20as%20subjects (accessed 26 January 2023).
36 Treaty of Tordesillas, June 7, 1494, Spanish–English ed., in Frances Gardiner
Davenport, European Treaties Bearing on the History of the United States and Its
Dependencies to 1648 (Carnegie Institution, 1917), 1:86–100, clause 1.
37 Owing to the limited cartographic methods of the Renaissance, several errors pertinent to the calculation of the geographic lines exist on the map. See Joaquim Alves Gaspar, “Blunders, Errors and Entanglements: Scrutinizing the Cantino Planisphere with a Cartometric Eye” (2012) 64 (2) Imago Mundi (Lympne) 181, 181–200.
38 Indeed, fishing and hunting in search of goods such ivory and fur were already taking place in the Arctic from the 16th century on the basis of freedom of navigation and exploitation; on the early exploitation activities in the Arctic Ocean, see Donat Pharand, “Freedom of the Seas in the Arctic Ocean” (1969) 19(2) University of Toronto Law Journal 210, 210–233.
39 Derek Croxton, “The Cabot Dilemma: John Cabot's 1497 Voyage & the Limits of Historiography” (1990) 33 Essays in History 42, 42–60.
40 Ibid.
41 To mention a few early significant explorers: Gaspar Corte-Real, Jacques Cartier, and Estêvão Gomes. For a comprehensive historical retrospection of European expedition over the Northwest Passage, see Glyndwr Williams, Voyages of Delusion: The Quest for the Northwest Passage (Yale University Press, 2003).
42 David L. Browman, Stephen Williams, Terry Barnhart et al., New Perspectives on the Origins of Americanist Archaeology (University of Alabama Press, 2002), 10–29.
43 Ibid. The Berring Strait was charted much later, after it was first traversed in 1728.
44 See Nate Probasco, “Cartography as a Tool of Colonization: Sir Humphrey Gilbert’s 1583 Voyage to North America” (2014) 67 Renaissance Quarterly 425, 425–472.
45 McGurk and Caquard, note 20, 51.
46 Ibid.
47 Kratochwil, note 12, 14.
48 Douglas M. Johnston, “The Northwest Passage Revisited” (2002) 33 Ocean Development & International Law 145, 156.
49 Ibid.
50 Andrew Lambert, The Gates of Hell: Sir John Franklin’s Tragic Quest for the North West Passage (Yale University Press, 2009).
51 Williams, note 41.
52 Isabelle Gapp, “The Boundaries of Arctic Map-Making: Exploration, Environment and Marginalia” 8 April 2021, Network in Canadian History & Environment | Nouvelle initiative Canadienne en histoire de l’environnement at: https://niche-canada.org/2021/04/08/the-boundaries-of-arctic-map-making-exploration-environment-and-marginalia (accessed 26 January 2023).
53 Ibid.
54 Scot Nickels, Nilliajut: Inuit Perspectives on Security Patriotism and Sovereignty (Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, 2013), 19.
55 Ibid.
56 Carol Brice-Bennett, “Inuit Land Use in the East-Central Canadian Arctic” in Milton M. R. Freeman (ed), Inuit Land Use and Occupancy Project—Volume One: Land Use and Occupancy (Minister of Supply and Services, 1976), 76–81.
57 Ibid.
58 These exchanges also contributed to Inuit hunting techniques, since Amundsen introduced to Uqsuqtuuq rifles. See Gita Ljubicic, Simon Okpakok, Sean Robertson et al., “Uqsuqtuurmiut Inuita Tuktumi Qaujimaningit (Inuit Knowledge of Caribou From Gjoa Haven, Nunavut): Collaborative Research Contributions to Co-Management Efforts” (2018) 54 (3) Polar Record 213, 213–233.
59 Kratochwil, note 12, 14.
60 Adjacent Territories Order (UK), 1880, reprinted in RSC 1985, App II, No. 14.
61 Pier Horensma, The Soviet Arctic (Routledge, 1991), 21–26.
62 William E. Butler, Northeast Arctic Passage (Sijthoff & Noordhoff, 1978), 71.
63 See, for instance, V. Lakhtin, “Rights over the Arctic” (1930) 10 American Journal of International Law 703, 704, where he emphasizes that the “normal” course of effective occupation in the Arctic cannot be realized, primarily due to economic limitations.
64 Head defines sector theory as “the practice of claiming sovereignty over a sector of the earth's surface, as measured by meridians of longitude.” See Ivan L. Head, “Canadian Claims to Territorial Sovereignty in the Arctic Regions” (1963) 9 McGill Law Journal 200, 202.
65 Paul Gottschalk, The Earliest Diplomatic Documents on America; The Papal Bulls of 1493 and the Treaty of Tordesillas (P. Gottschalk, 1927).
66 Donat Pharand, Canada’s Arctic Waters in International Law (Cambridge University Press, 1988), 3.
67 Ibid. Pharand discusses the concept of contiguity, which served as a legal basis for the sector theory. He dismisses the doctrine of contiguity as a valid principle of international law. His comprehensive analysis has obtained wide recognition.
68 Erik Franckx, Maritime Claims in the Arctic: Canadian and Russian Perspectives (Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1993), 80.
69 Pharand, note 66, 48–51.
70 Pharand, note 66, 59.
71 Heather Exner-Pirot, “Poirier’s Revenge—The Map of Canada has the Wrong Arctic Boundaries. No, Really” 1 November 2016 at 18:37—Last Updated: Tuesday, 1 November 2016 at 19:17, Eye on the Arctic at: https://www.rcinet.ca/eye-on-the-arctic/2016/11/01/blog-poiriers-revenge-the-map-of-canada-has-the-wrong-arctic-boundaries-no-really (accessed 26 January 2023).
72 1825 Convention between Great Britain and Russia Concerning the Limits of their Respective Possessions on the North-West Coast of America and the Navigation of the Pacific Ocean, signed at St. Petersburg, 1825. Reprinted in C. Parry (ed), Consolidated Treaty Series (Oceana Publications, 1969), 75, 95–101.
73 David H. Gray, “Canada’s Unresolved Maritime Boundaries” (1997) IBRU Boundary and Security Bulletin 61, 61–70. For a discussion on the 141st meridian, see P. Whitney Lackenbauer, “The Beaufort Boundary: An Historical Appraisal of a Maritime Boundary Dispute” in P. Whitney Lackenbauer, Suzanne Lalonde and Elizabeth Riddell-Dixon (eds), Canada and the Maritime Arctic: Boundaries, Shelves, and Waters (North American and Arctic Defence and Security Network, 2020), 1.
74 Franckx, note 68, 75.
75 As discussed by Jan Jakub Solski, “The Genesis of Article 234 of the UNCLOS” (2021) 52 Ocean Development & International Law 1, 6–7, Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau reiterated that the declaration of a 100-nm Arctic Waters Pollution Prevention Zone by Canada was not aimed at asserting sovereignty. See Canada, “Canadian Prime Minister’s Remarks on the Proposed Legislation, Transcript of Prime Minister Trudeau’s Remarks to the Press following the Introduction of Legislation on Arctic Pollution, Territorial Sea and Fishing Zones in the Canadian House of Commons on 8 April 1970,” reproduced in “Documents Concerning Canadian Legislation on Arctic Pollution and Territorial Sea And Fishing Zones” (1970) 9(3) International Legal Materials 598, 602. However, the waters within the Canadian Arctic Archipelago were still referred to as “Canadian” without specifying what this entails; see Canada, “Canadian Reply to US Government of 16 April 1970, Summary of Canadian Note of April 16, Tabled by the Secretary of State for External Affairs in the House April 17” (1970) 9 International Legal Materials 607, 661.
76 Michael R. M’Gonigle and Mark W. Zacher, “Canadian Foreign Policy and the Control of Marine Pollution” in Barbara Johnson and Mark W. Zacher (eds), Canadian Foreign Policy and the Law of the Sea (University of British Columbia Press, 1977), 109, in reference to House of Common Debates, 15 May 1969, 8720.
77 Ibid, 111–112, in reference to House of Common Debates, 23 October 1969, 3.
78 Canada, Arctic Waters Pollution Prevention Act, Revised Statutes of Canada, 1985 (AWPPA), c. A-12.
79 D. McRae, "The Negotiation of Article 234" in F. Griffiths (ed), Politics of the Northwest Passage (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1987), 101.
80 The 1970 AWPPA, the real predecessor of Article 234, applied in “Arctic waters,” which is defined in Section 2 as
the waters adjacent to the mainland and islands of the Canadian arctic within the area enclosed by the sixtieth parallel of north latitude, the one hundred and forty-first meridian of west longitude and a line measured seaward from the nearest Canadian land a distance of one hundred nautical miles, except that in the area between the islands of the Canadian arctic and Greenland, where the line of equidistance between the islands of the Canadian arctic and Greenland is less than one hundred nautical miles from the nearest Canadian land, that line shall be substituted for the line measured seaward one hundred nautical miles from the nearest Canadian land.
81 For an overview of the AWPPA, see D. McRae and D. J. Goundrey, “Environmental Jurisdiction in Arctic Waters: The Extent of Article 234” (1982) 16 University of British Columbia Law Review 197, 205–207.
82 K. Bartenstein, “The ‘Arctic Exception’ in the Law of the Sea Convention: A Contribution to Safer Navigation in the Northwest Passage?” (2011) 42 Ocean Development and International Law 22, 26 mentions a letter dated 17 December 1973 and written by the Bureau of Legal Affairs, reproduced in E. G. Lee, “Canadian Practice in International Law During 1973 as Reflected Mainly in Public Correspondence and Statements of the Department of External Affairs” (1974) 13 Canadian Yearbook of International Law 272, 277–279, as the first official Canadian claim of internal waters.
83 E. G. Lee, “Canadian Practice in International Law During 1973 as Reflected Mainly in Public Correspondence and Statements of the Department of External Affairs” (1974) 13 Canadian Yearbook of International Law 272, 283.
84 K. Singh and T. Koivurova, “The South China Sea Award: Prompting a Revived Interest in the Validity of Canada’s Historic Internal Waters Claim?” (2019) 10 Yearbook of Polar Law 386, 405.
85 Armand de Mestral, “Article 234 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea its Origins and its Future” in S. Lalonde and T. L. McDorman (eds), International Law and Politics of the Arctic Ocean: Essays in Honor of Donat Pharand (Brill Nijhoff, 2015), 113, refers to “a drawer full of protests” received by Canada in response to the enactment of the 1970 AWPPA.
86 The 1970 Canada ICJ Declaration, 598–599. The declaration terminated the acceptance of compulsory jurisdiction of the ICJ over disputes regarding, inter alia, “the prevention or control of pollution or contamination of the marine environment in marine areas adjacent to the coast of Canada.”
87 Canada, note 75, 600.
88 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, adopted 10 December 1982, entered into force 16 November 1994, 1833 UNTS 3.
89 Section 2 of the AWPPA defines the Arctic Waters as the internal waters of Canada and the waters of the territorial sea of Canada and the exclusive economic zone of Canada, within the area enclosed by the 60th parallel of north latitude, the 141st meridian of west longitude, and the outer limit of the exclusive economic zone; however, where the international boundary between Canada and Greenland is less than 200 nautical miles from the baselines of the territorial sea of Canada, the international boundary shall be substituted for that outer limit (eaux arctiques).
90 Canada, note 78.
91 Shipping Safety Control Zones Order (C.R.C., c. 356).
92 Northern Canada Vessel Traffic Services Zone Regulations (SOR/2010-127).
93 Arctic Shipping Safety and Pollution Prevention Regulations (SOR/2017-286).
94 See Figure 6.
95 After discovering oil in Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, in 1968, an American-owned oil company tested the feasibility of using the NWP for oil transport. The controversial 1969 voyage of the SS Manhattan, repeated in 1970, prompted domestic debates in Canada about protecting NWP waters from unauthorized foreign vessel passage.
96 In May 1985, the United States informed Canada that the USCGC Polar Sea would sail through the NWP as a matter of exercise of navigational rights and freedoms and without seeking Canadian permission. Following an exchange of diplomatic correspondence, the Polar Sea completed the transit in August 1985.
97 Gonigle and Zacher, note 76.
98 Lee, note 83, 277.
99 Suzanne Lalonde, “Increased Traffic through Canadian Arctic Waters: Canada's State of Readiness” (2004) 38 La Revue Juridique Thémis De L’université De Montréal 49, 67.
100 “Canada’s sovereignty in the Arctic is indivisible. It embraces land, sea and ice. It extends without interruption to the seaward facing coasts of the Arctic islands. These islands are joined, and not divided, by the waters between them. They are bridged for most of the year by ice. From time immemorial Canada’s Inuit people have used and occupied the ice as they have used and occupied the land”: Griffiths, note 30.
101 Government of Canada, “Canada: Statement Concerning Arctic Sovereignty” (1985) 24 (6) International Legal Materials, 1725. See also the statement of the Foreign Minister Joe Clark in Griffiths, note 30.
102 Territorial Sea Geographical Coordinates (Area 7) Order (SOR/85-872)
103 For instance, in 2009, a report of the Standing Senate Committee on Fisheries and Oceans was published, acknowledging that, if needed, Canada “could invoke the long unbroken history of Inuit usage of the lands and waters” to strengthen its arguments over sovereignty in the area. See William Rompkey and Ethel M. Cochrane, Rising to the Arctic Challenge: Report on the Canadian Coast Guard (Standing Senate Committee on Fisheries and Oceans, 2009), 41.
104 Nickels, note 54, 34.
105 For instance, Canada’s submission to the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf, established by UNCLOS, has also been done without consultations with the Inuit, disregarding the strong legal basis for consultation provided in domestic litigation; see Clyde River (Hamlet) v. Petroleum Geo-Services Inc., 2017 SCC 40, [2017] 1 S.C.R. 1069; Haida Nation v. British Columbia (Minister of Forests), 2004 SCC 73, [2004] 3 S.C.R. 511; Rio Tinto Alcan Inc. v. Carrier Sekani Tribal Council; Rio Tinto Alcan Inc. v. Carrier Sekani Tribal Council, 2010 SCC 43, [2010] 2 S.C.R. 650; see also ibid, 45. It has to be acknowledged though that in the negotiations of the recent International Agreement to Prevent Unregulated High Seas Fisheries in the Central Arctic Ocean (CAOFA) the Inuit were part of the Canadian delegation; see https://www.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/international/arctic-arctique-eng.htm#_About_the_agreement (accessed 8 October 2023).
106 Article 7(1) of UNCLOS.
107 Pharand, note 66, 125.
108 R. K. Headland with colleagues, friends, and associates, “Transits of the Northwest Passage to End of the 2022 Navigation Season” (revised 8 December 2022), Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge at: https://www.spri.cam.ac.uk/resources/infosheets/northwestpassage.pdf (accessed 26 January 2023).
109 Cornell Overfield, “Could a Kiwi Sailor’s Northwest Passage Transit Break the Legal Ice Between Canada and the U.S.?” 25 September 2020, 8:01 AM, Lawfare at: https://www.lawfareblog.com/could-kiwi-sailors-northwest-passage-transit-break-legal-ice-between-canada-and-us (accessed 26 January 2023).
110 Donald McRae, “Arctic Sovereignty? What Is at Stake?” (2007) 64 Behind the Lines 11.
111 Suzanne Lalonde, “The Northwest Passage” in P. Whitney Lackenbauer, Suzanne Lalonde, and Elizabeth Riddell-Dixon (eds), Canada and the Maritime Arctic: Boundaries, Shelves, and Waters (North American and Arctic Defence and Security Network 2020), 107, 120–121.
112 See, for instance, Val Plumwood, Feminism and the Mastery of Nature (Routledge, 1993), 120–140; Becky Mansfield, “Neoliberalism in the Oceans: ‘Rationalization,’ Property Rights, and the Commons Question” (2004) 35 Geoforum 313, 313–326.
113 In conceptualizing the dichotomies about land and sea that underlie European spatial thinking, important has been the contribution of the German jurist Carl Schmitt. See Schmitt, The Nomos of the Earth in the International Law of the Jus Publicum Europaeum (Telos Press Publishing, 2016). It has yet to be mentioned here that Schmitt’s work value and significance are highly controversial, mainly owing to his intellectual support for and active involvement with Nazism.
114 It is to be noted here that the term “holistic” has been assessed by some scholars as not appropriate for describing the Inuit worldview since it refers to the idea of compilation of different parts to a whole. See Leah Beveridge, “Inuit Nunangat and the Northwest Passage: An Exploration of Inuit and Arctic Shipping Conceptualizations of and Relationships With Arctic Marine Spaces in Canada” in Aldo E. Chircop, Floris Goerlandt, Claudio Aporta et al. (eds), Governance of Arctic Shipping: Rethinking Risk Human Impacts and Regulation (Springer, 2020), 137.
115 Ibid, 142–143.
116 Natalia Loukacheva, “Indigenous Inuit Law, ‘Western’ Law and Northern Issues” (2012) 3 Arctic Review on Law and Politics 200, 205.
117 Endalew Lijalem Enyew, Margherita Paola Poto and Apostolos Tsiouvalas, “Beyond Borders and States: Modelling Ocean Connectivity According to Indigenous Cosmovisions” (2021) 12 Arctic Review on Law and Politics 207, 210.
118 “The Arctic Ocean and the Sea Ice Is Our Nuna,” United Nations Chronicle at: https://www.un.org/en/chronicle/article/arctic-ocean-and-sea-ice-our-nuna (accessed 26 January 2023).
119 Claudio Aporta, “Routes Trails and Tracks: Trail Breaking among the Inuit of Igloolik” (2004) Études/Inuit/Studies 9. Claudio Aporta, D. R. Fraser Taylor and Gita J. Laidler, "Geographies of Inuit Sea Ice Use: Introduction" (2011) 55 The Canadian Geographer 1, 1–5.
120 Leah Beveridge, note 114, 143.
121 Rebecca Onion, “A Beautiful Driftwood-and-Sealskin Map, Carved by an Inuit Hunter in 1925” 8 January 2014, 12:15 PM, Slate at: https://slate.com/human-interest/2014/01/inuit-cartography-map-of-a-greenland-bay-carved-by-silas-sandgreen-in-1925.html (accessed 26 January 2023).
122 Robert A. Rundstrom, "A Cultural Interpretation of Inuit Map Accuracy" (1990) 80 Geographical Review 155, 157.
123 “Inuit Cartography” 12 April 2016, The Decolonial Atlas at: https://decolonialatlas.wordpress.com/2016/04/12/inuit-cartography (accessed 28 January 2023).
124 McGurk and Caquard, note 20, 51.
125 Rundstrom, note 122, 158.
126 McGurk and Caquard, note 20, 52.
127 Nickels, note 54, 13.
128 See Milton M. R. Freeman, “Looking Back—and Looking Ahead—35 Years After the Inuit Land Use and Occupancy Project” (2011) 55 The Canadian Geographer 20; Committee for Original People's Entitlement, The Western Arctic Claim: The Inuvialuit Final Agreement (Indian and Northern Affairs Canada, 1984); Canada: Department of Indian Affairs Northern Development, and Tungavik Federation of Nunavut, Agreement-in-principle between the Inuit of the Nunavut Settlement Area and Her Majesty in Right of Canada (Indian Affairs and Northern Development, 1990); Labrador Inuit Association and Canada, Land Claims Agreement between the Inuit of Labrador and Her Majesty the Queen in Right of Newfoundland and Labrador and Her Majesty the Queen in Right of Canada (Indian and Northern Affairs Canada, 2005).
129 Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami (former Inuit Tapirisat of Canada) is a nonprofit organization in Canada that represents more than 65,000 Inuit and “serves as a national voice protecting and advancing the rights and interests of Inuit in Canada.” See “We Are the National Voice of Canada’s 65,000 Inuit,” Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami at: https://www.itk.ca/national-voice-for-communities-in-the-canadian-arctic (accessed 26 January 2023).
130 Nadine C. Fabbi, “Inuit Nunaat as an Emerging Region in Area Studies: Building an Arctic Studies Program South of the Tree Line” (University of British Columbia, 2015), 68.
131 The term “Inuit Nunangat” was introduced in 2009 as a more inclusive and appropriate term to determine the Inuit territory, encompassing water, land, and ice. To access the map, see “Maps Of Inuit Nunangat (Inuit Regions Of Canada),” Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami at: www.itk.ca/maps-of-inuit-nunangat (accessed 11 January 2023).
132 Ibid.
133 Fabbi, note 130, 68–70.
134 UNCLOS, preamble (emphasis added).
135 Fabbi, note 130, 68.
136 McGurk and Caquard, note 20, 51–63.
137 Ibid, 63.
138 “Northwest Passage and the Construction of Inuit Pan-Arctic Identities” Pan Inuit Trails at: http://www.paninuittrails.org/index.html?module=module.paninuittrails (accessed 27 January 2023).
139 The term “meshwork” is here borrowed by Tim Ingold, who points that that while a network is a purely spatial and stable construct, the lines of the meshwork are constantly moving, growing, and entangling each other; see Tim Ingold, Making Anthropology, Archaeology, Art and Architecture (Routledge, 2013), 132.
140 On Inuit trails see Claudio Aporta, “The Trail as Home: Inuit and Their Pan-Arctic Network of Routes” (2009) 37 Human Ecology 131; see also Claudio Aporta, “Routes, Trails and Tracks: Trail Breaking Among the Inuit of Igloolik” 28 Études/Inuit/Studies 9; see also Beveridge, note 114, 144.
141 Nate Engler, Teresa Scassa an d Taylor D. R. Fraser, “Mapping Traditional Knowledge: Digital Cartography in the Canadian North” (2013) 48 Cartographica 189, 189–199.
The map can be accessed here: http://nunaliit.org/ (accessed 8 October 2023).
142 Philip E. Steinberg, Berit Kristoffersen and Kristen L. Shake, “Edges and Flows: Exploring Legal Materialities and Biophysical Politics of Sea Ice,” in Irus Braverman and Elisabeth R. Johnson (eds), Blue Legalities (Duke University Press, 2020), 85.
143 Article 38 (2) of UNCLOS.
144 UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (adopted 2 October 2007), UNGA Res 61/295 (UNDRIP).
145 United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act
S.C. 2021, c. 14, https://www.laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/u-2.2/page-1.html (accessed 8 October 2023).
146 Section 4 of the UNDRIP Act.
147 Section 5 of the UNDRIP Act.
148 United States–Canada Joint Arctic Leaders’ Statement, 20 December 2016, available at: https://pm.gc.ca/en/news/statements/2016/12/20/united-states-canada-joint-arctic-leaders-statement (accessed 8 October 2023).
149 Jackie Dawson, Natalie Carter, Nicolien Van Luijk et al., "Infusing Inuit and Local Knowledge Into the Low Impact Shipping Corridors: An Adaptation to Increased Shipping Activity and Climate Change in Arctic Canada" (2020) 105 Environmental Science & Policy 19, 20; reprinting Michael Levitt, Nation-Building at Home, Vigiliance Beyond: Preparing for the Coming Decades in the Arctic: Report of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development (House of Commons, 2019), 68.
150 For a good overview of the recommendations of the 13 out of 14 groups, see ibid; Community reports are available at: https://www.arcticcorridors.ca/corridors-recommendations (accessed 8 October 2023).
151 In 2022, there was a new round of consultations toward this purpose between the Government of Canada with Inuit, First Nations, and Metis organization and governments; territorial and provincial governments; industry, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), academia, and others in the private sector; see https://www.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/about-notre-sujet/engagement/2021/shipping-corridors-navigation-eng.html (accessed 8 October 2023). See also Natalie A. Carter, Jackie Dawson and Annika Stensland, Opportunities and Strategies for Effective Management of Low Impact Arctic Shipping Corridors (University of Ottawa, 2022) for a recent comprehensive survey of views on different management strategies.
152 The expression “One map to rule them all?,” also used in the article’s title, is based on the popular expression “One ring to rule them all,” used in the trilogy The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien. By “One map to rule them all?” we refer to the Low-Impact Shipping Corridors Initiative, as it seems that this cartographic initiative incorporates both Inuit and state interests.
153 Yet, as explained by Nesiah, the very idea of self-determination in international law reproduces the law’s territorial assumptions that require spatial confinements, even when used for the benefit of colonised peoples; see, overall, the discussion in Vasuki Nesiah, “Placing International Law: White Spaces on a Map” (2003) 16 Leiden Journal of International Law 1.
154 See also Harley and Laxton, note 8, 59.
155 Li T. Murray, “What Is Land? Assembling a Resource for Global Investment” (2014) 39 Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 589.
156 Cameron Kirk and Graham White, Northern Governments in Transition: Political and Constitutional Development in the Yukon Nunavut and the Western Northwest Territories (Institute for Research on Public Policy, 1995).
157 “Canadian Inuit Challenge U.S. Stance on Northwest Passage” at: https://nunatsiaq.com/stories/article/canadian-inuit-challenge-u-s-stance-on-northwest-passage (accessed 26 January 2023).