POLITICAL RIGHTS IN THE POLAR REGIONS* 



By David Hunter Miller 



The Arctic 



Untraveled air routes and undeveloped resources in the Arctic 

 are now being thought of as valuable for the future, even the near 

 future. For this, Mr. Stefansson is perhaps more responsible than 

 any other one individual. That the French, in 1763, gave up Canada 

 rather than Guadeloupe to the British, who accepted the former 

 instead of the latter with hesitating reluctance, and that the judgment 

 of Seward regarding Alaska had to wait a generation or so for its vin- 

 dication, have been some of the effective historical arguments of the 

 practical explorer, who is so often deemed merely a prejudiced dreamer. 



The known land area within the physical limit of the Arctic Regions 

 as defined in the present work (mean isotherm of 10° C. for July) 

 comprises over 2,000,000 square miles. What states have sovereignty 

 over this vast region? To what countries are we to assign the known 

 and the unknown? 



Let us think of the Arctic as in part known land, in part known 

 sea, and in part unexplored, and thus let us look at it on the accom- 

 panying map (Fig. i). We see that the countries now having impor- 

 tant possessions within the Arctic Regions are Canada, the United 

 States, Russia, Denmark, and Norway. 



Danish Sovereignty 



Denmark's Arctic possession is the island of Greenland, with its 

 enormous area of over 800,000 square miles. There are some settle- 

 ments at various points along the coasts of Greenland. But the 

 interior is uninhabited, partly unexplored, and the island has been 

 crossed from one side to the other only six or seven times by explorers 

 such as Nansen and Peary and more recently by Rasmussen and 

 Koch. With an area thrice the size of Texas, the population is not 

 more than 15,000, mostly Eskimo. The island is under Danish ad- 

 ministration, and the title of Denmark, in part at least, is ancient 

 and is now unquestioned. (Norwegian rights on portions of the east 

 coast were adjusted by the Convention of 1924.^) The world generally, 



♦Reprinted by permission, with modifications, from Foreign Affairs, New York, Vol. 4, 1925-26, 

 pp. 47-60, and Vol. 5, 1926-27, pp. 508-510. 



1 " In 1921 Denmark issued an official circular closing all of the country to other nationals. Sub- 

 sequently Norway protested against this action, and by treaty of July 28, 1924, Denmark opened East 

 Greenland to Norwegian traders, sealers, and whalers and agreed to postpone final decision 20 years, 

 during which time the two nations would enjoy equal opportunity of establishing commercial influence 



