Abstract

Article 76 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea provides a mechanism by which a coastal State can extend sovereign rights over resources of the seafloor and subsurface outside of its 200 nautical mile exclusive economic zone. In order for a coastal State to delineate this region, often referred to as the extended continental shelf (ECS), bathymetric, geophysical and geological data must be collected and analyzed to apply the mandates defined within Article 76. The coastal State must present its ECS delineation to a commission, called the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS). The CLCS reviews coastal States’ submissions and publishes recommendations as to whether they believe that the proposed ECS boundary is in accordance with Article 76. The United States has a potential ECS in the Chukchi Borderland region north of Alaska. This thesis examined two coastal States’ CLCS recommendations, the Kerguelen Plateau (Australia) and Vøring margin (Norway), to assess what criteria the CLCS utilized to classify seafloor highs, to forecast the impact these recommendations may have on a potential submission of the United States in the Chukchi Borderland region. This thesis has found that the CLCS requires a coastal State with seafloor highs that are connected to its continental margin to show that these features are (or not) morphologically and geologically continuous with the continental margin and landmass. If the coastal State can prove the seafloor high under question satisfies both of these criteria, it could potentially increase the coastal State’s final ECS outer boundary. Application of these criteria to the Chukchi Borderland region found that available data today could substantiate an argument that the Chukchi Borderland fulfills both criteria; however, further geological data needs to be collected from the northern extension of the Chukchi Borderland to support an Article 76 seafloor high classification.

Presenter Bio

Onni completed her undergraduate degree at the Walsh School of Foreign Service (SFS) at Georgetown University. Within the SFS’s Science, Technology & International Affairs (STIA) major, she examined the dynamic relationship between climate change and socio-economic development, in particular freshwater scarcity and riparian systems. During her time at Georgetown, she interned and worked in a variety of settings that empowered her to examine this intersection of science, policy and governance including the U.S. State Department, Department of Defense’s National Defense University and the think-tank, Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS).

At the Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping (CCOM), University of New Hampshire, Onni is a Master of Science Candidate in Ocean Mapping. With her advisor, Dr. Larry Mayer, she is currently examining Article 76 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and its application for extended continental shelf claims for her thesis research. This summer Onni will be sailing on the E/V Nautilus and attending the Rhodes Academy to study UNCLOS in greater depth.

Publication Date

5-16-2016

Document Type

Presentation

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