Projects & Grants
| The Geopolitics of the Arctic in the context of the current development of the Arctic region | |
|---|---|
| Project Id | SGS15/PřF/2019 |
| Main solver | Mgr. Adam Kočí, Ph.D. |
| Period | 1/2019 - 12/2019 |
| Provider | Specifický VŠ výzkum |
| State | finished |
| Anotation | For a long time, Arctic region reminded a frozen wasteland and the world events were kept long away from its borders. The global importance of the Arctic considerably increased in the age of cold war, when this territory represented the shortest way for the ballistic missiles of two unforgiving enemies, the United States of America and the Soviet Union. Recent development shows us that this remote area is not separated from geopolitical and geoeconomic influence. Climate changes, race for natural resources or efforts to control shipping routes reveal its previously unrecognized importance. The Arctic political regime is defined by a set of international treaties and the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) is the most important of them. Based on this treaty, Arctic coastal states submit territorial claims on the area of the Arctic Ocean, which is beyond their national jurisdiction. The question of prestige is then the ownership of the North Pole itself. In 2007, the Russian minisubmarine placed its titanium national flag on the North Pole seabed. The act has raised a strong international response. Subsequently, a lot of countries formulated their own arctic strategies. The main actors of circumpolar politics are the members of the Arctic Council: Russia, Norway, Finland, Sweden, Iceland, Denmark, USA and Canada. However, other states and organizations (eg. China, South Korea, the United Kingdom, the EU) are formulating their position in the region. For Czechia, it is increasingly urgent to join this group with its own perspective of the Arctic, but we suffer from a lack of professional interest beyond the Arctic Circle. The proposed research project focuses on the analysis and explanation of the recent development in the region and predicts its geopolitical, geo-economic, cultural and environmental significance for the next decades. |
