Northern Sea Route – The NCLOS Blog

New Draft Law on the Russian Arctic Straits – Putin’ Money Where the Mouth is?

By: Jan Jakub Solski

PDF: Jan Solski_14092022_NCLOS blog.pdf

Matter commented on: Draft Federal Law of the Russian Federation “On the Amendments to the Federal Law on the Internal Sea Waters, Territorial Sea and Contiguous Zone of the Russian Federation, 31 July 1998, No. 155-FZ (on the procedure for the passage of foreign warships and other sea vessels operated for non-commercial purposes in the internal sea waters of the Russian Federation)” (2022 Draft Law).

1 Introduction

The 2022 Draft Law was introduced for consideration in the Russian Duma in August 2022. It deals with the right of entry of foreign warships to internal waters in the Northern Sea Route (NSR) and aims to adjust the regime of innocent passage in the Russian territorial sea. This blog analyses the proposed legislation in the larger context of other documents recently adopted by the Russian Federation (unfortunately only available in Russian):

Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation of 16 November 2021, No. 1959, “On Approving the List of Geographic Coordinates of Points Determining the Position of Baselines for measuring the breadth of the territorial sea, contiguous zone, exclusive economic zone and continental shelf of the Russian Federation off the mainland coast and islands of the Russian Federation in the Arctic Ocean and on declaring invalid on the territory of the Russian Federation the section “Arctic Ocean” of the list of Geographic Coordinates of Points Determining the Position of Baselines for measuring the breadth of the territorial sea, contiguous zone, exclusive economic zone and continental shelf of the USSR off the mainland coast and islands of the Arctic Ocean, the Baltic and Black Seas, approved by the decision of the Council of Ministers of the USSR ,15 January 1985, No. 56-22 (2021 Decree on Arctic Baselines), and
Decree of the President of the Russian Federation of 31 July 2022, No. 512 “On the approval of the Maritime Doctrine of the Russian Federation” (2022 Maritime Doctrine).

Navigational rights of warships through the Northern Sea Route (NSR) – all bark and no bite?

By: Jan Jakub Solski

PDF version: https://site.uit.no/jclos/files/2019/05/JCLOS-Blog_31.5.2019_Jan-Solski-1.pdf

Document commented on: Draft Resolution of the Government of Russia on Amendments to the Resolution of the Government of Russia No. 1102, 2 October 1999, “On the rules of navigation and presence of foreign warships and other state-owned ships operated for non-commercial purposes in the territorial sea, internal waters, on naval bases, and bases for stationing warships in seaports of the Russian Federation”.

This document, originally prepared by the Russian Ministry of Defense, 1 March 2019, has been subject to consultations since then. While it remains to be seen whether or not the Government of Russia ever adopts this Resolution, some of its central ideas deserve comment. To that end this blog post discusses the following points:

The background to this proposal;
Its central elements;
The question of applicable navigational rights within the straits of the NSR;
The question of the (in)consistency of the proposed measures with international law and Russia’s earlier positions.

Background

In September 2019, the French Navy’s new offshore support and assistance vessel, the Rhône (A603) transited the Northeast Passage, starting in Tromsø, Norway, 1 September and ending in Dutch Harbor, Alaska, on 17 September. There is little explicit information available as to whether the vessel coordinated its plans with Russian authorities beforehand, but Russian sources refer to the voyage as conducted “without warning”. It is clear that the vessel navigated independently, without icebreaker assistance or pilotage, although the Russian news agency Interfax informs that the vessel was “monitored” by the radio intelligence equipment of the Northern and Pacific fleets in their areas of responsibility in the Russian Arctic.

Over the past years, different signals, such as the diplomatic note of 29 May 2015, have been coming from another NATO member State, the United States, indicating the US objections and concerns regarding Russia’s NSR regulatory scheme, and, more recently, its readiness to take concrete action by transiting the Russian Arctic with surface vessels as part of the US Freedom of Navigation Program.