> Should Canada succeed in their claims internationally, it may be a good opportunity for other countries to make use of the new doctrine as well.
To be fair this statement is pretty inflammatory.
There is no new doctrine. Canada has always claimed they owned these island and no other country has ever disagreed with this(1), until the past 20 years or so when oil was found under the water and the north west passage started to open up.
And to be clear, Canada has claimed ownership, of these islands since 1880, so this isn't exactly a fresh land grab:)
As can be seen from this diagram, any ship going through here sails directly through Canadian waters.
(1) with the exception of Denmark and hood island. However here both countries disagree about which side of their territorial borders a small island lies on.
Again: it's not about the islands, it's about the water between them.
Let's stipulate that Canada owns every island in the hemisphere. Now what? If enough ice melts that there's a passage between them which doesn't come within 12 nautical miles of an island's coast, then there's a passage that isn't in Canada's territorial waters, and Canada can't, under current international law, forbid ships using the passage.
For the passage in the wikipedia diagram, both of the two paths after the first bifurcation (moving westward) pass through channels less than 24 nautical miles wide. Canada would need to build observation towers but it could be defended with "cannons" e.g. the M777.
To be fair this statement is pretty inflammatory.
There is no new doctrine. Canada has always claimed they owned these island and no other country has ever disagreed with this(1), until the past 20 years or so when oil was found under the water and the north west passage started to open up.
And to be clear, Canada has claimed ownership, of these islands since 1880, so this isn't exactly a fresh land grab:)
As can be seen from this diagram, any ship going through here sails directly through Canadian waters.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Northwest_passage.jpg
(1) with the exception of Denmark and hood island. However here both countries disagree about which side of their territorial borders a small island lies on.