The politics of security and international law in Norway’s Arctic waters

Security policy challenges in the high north should be approached both as an insight into the international legal framework on which co-existence in the region rests and as a sober realpolitik analysis. Against this background, the objective of this article is to paint a more balanced picture of security policy options in Norway’s Arctic waters, rather than observing contemporary general discourse on the topic might suggest. Management of marine resources, delimitation of unresolved maritime boundaries and relations with Russia in the northern maritime areas are used as examples to substantiate our main thesis which is that dispassionate diplomacy is more likely to resolve disputes than is military confrontation.