ice areas resting on the sea makes any clearly defined territorial 

 delimitation impossible. Any occupation of such areas would be 

 too precarious and shifting to give good title. The legal rules 

 which recognize the freedom of the high seas naturally apply also 

 to a moving and shifting substance like the Arctic Ocean ice areas. 

 Consequently, the most authoritative opinion is that the right of 

 sovereignty over such ice areas is denied by international law. It 

 was for this reason that the United States made no claim to the 

 North Pole on the basis of Peary's discovery in 1909. 



Until recently there was some doubt that occupation of ice areas 

 resting on land was legally possible — but for a different reason. 

 Some publicists and some governments (including the United 

 States) held that climatic conditions prevented any occupation of 

 these regions from being really effective. When Captain Amund- 

 sen made his arctic flight in 1926, he was authorized by the Nor- 

 wegian Government to take possession of any land discovered, but 

 was specifically denied authority to take possession of any ice areas 

 resting on the sea. In reply to a Norwegian note concerning 

 Amundsen's discoveries, Secretary of State Hughes said : 



"Today, if an explorer is able to ascertain the existence of lands still un- 

 known to civilization, his act of so-called discovery, coupled with a formal 

 taking of possession, would have no significance, save as he might herald the 

 advent of the settler; and where for climatic or other reasons actual settle- 

 ment would be an impossibility, as in the case of the polar regions, such 

 conduct on his part would afford frail support for a reasonable claim of 

 sovereignty." 



For this reason the United States would not recognize Norway's 

 sovereignty in the polar area on the basis of the discoveries made 

 by Amundsen. 



To argue, as Secretary Hughes did over 20 years ago, that the 

 ice cover resting on land is not susceptible to sovereignty because 

 of the impossibility of establishing and maintaining effective es- 

 tablishments in such areas, is, of course, no longer a valid argu- 

 ment. States do now claim sovereignty to various areas of this 

 kind and the claims are recognized as valid by the family of na- 

 tions. When the rule (that climate ipso facto prevented any 

 truly effective occupation) was formulated, the whole question of 

 legal rights in the region was, by and large, an academic one. As 

 a matter of actual fact, man did lack the capacity to make use of 

 the region as an area of transit or of residence. The airplane was 

 a vehicle of limited range and trans-polar flights were still in the 

 future. The capacity of medicine and science, not only to sustain 



143 



