The Svalbard Treaty (1920)

Assembled from 19 blocks · 1 evidence · 21 related

1. Story
2. Signed at Paris on 9 February 1920, it recognises the full and absolute sovereignty of Norway over the Svalbard archipelago while granting nationals of all parties equal rights of access and of commercial activity there, subject to Norwegian law, and restricting the use of the islands for warlike purposes. It is the third polar governance model and the one that shows the other two are not the only options: the Antarctic Treaty suspends the question of sovereignty, the Arctic states each answer it individually inside their own borders, and Svalbard answers it by pairing undivided sovereignty with open access. That is why a Russian mining settlement and a Chinese research station both operate on Norwegian territory. The precise reach of the equal-treatment provisions offshore, in waters governed by the modern law of the sea rather than by anything the 1920 negotiators imagined, is disputed.
3. Knowledge
4. The Antarctic Treaty (1959)
5. The Svalbard Treaty (1920)
6. Connections
7. The Antarctic Treaty (1959)
8. The Svalbard Treaty is signed at Paris
9. Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources
10. The International Geophysical Year puts twelve nations on the ice at once
11. Antarctica
12. Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty (Madrid Protocol, 1991)
13. The Svalbard Treaty (1920)
14. McMurdo Station
15. The Antarctic Treaty is signed at Washington
16. The Antarctic Treaty enters into force
17. The Madrid Protocol prohibits Antarctic mining
18. Evidence
19. The treaty recognises the full and absolute sovereignty of Norway over Svalbard while granting nationals of all contracting parties equal rights of access and of commercial activity there, subject to Norwegian law, and restricts warlike uses of the archipelago. V55 VERIFICATION BASIS: not opened during production; no research channel was available. The extent to which the equal-treatment provisions apply to maritime zones beyond the territorial sea is legally disputed and this record takes no position on it.