Hajózási statisztikák hatása az Északnyugati-átjáró nemzetközi jogi státuszára

• Main Author: Csatlós Erzsébet
• Format: Book Part
• Language: Hungarian; English
• Published: Szegedi Tudományegyetem Állam- és Jogtudományi Kar 2012
• Subjects: 05. Társadalomtudományok; 05.05. Jogtudomány; Arctic; Canada; Northwest Passage; Northwest passage
• Online Access: http://acta.bibl.u-szeged.hu/84690/; http://acta.bibl.u-szeged.hu/84690/1/unnepi_ekonyv_herczeg_janos_2012_351-371.pdf

The essay aims to examine the question of effect of navigational statistics on the legal status of one of the major sea routes of the Arctic. The Northwest Passage had been covered by a nearly continuous icecap for long decades and only Canada as coastal State used the territory. In the sixties this situation had been changed because of beginning of offshore drillings along US and Canadian coasts. Companies needed to find shorter and cheaper sea routes between continents and the Arctic sea route seemed to be perfect. However by that time Canada had already established its own legal regime considering the waters of the sea route and did not want to permit the passage of US ships at all along the Northwest Passage as it belongs to the internal waters of the Canadian State. The US argued that the sea route had been an international strait thus open for transit for all the nations. This disagreement over the legal status of the sea route has been on agenda since 1969 when the first incident happened in connection with the passage of the US tanker, the SS Manhattan. As the qualification of international straits requires the frequant use of the sea route in question, in that time the Northwest Passage was not declared as an international strait. As ice melts, Canada reasserts its sovereignty over the Northwest Passage but nowadays not only the neighbouring State is willing to use the route. Because of warming the sea route is becoming more and more navigable so the main question of the essay moves around the navigational statistic, the number of transit of passages made by Canadian – and by foreign ships with the consent of Canada and examines the relation between the numeric facts and the legal status of the Northwest Passage.