Overview of Scholarship on the Arctic Council

The central role of the Arctic Council in the Arctic institutional landscape has been well reflected in the prolific scholarship on the AC (Axworthy, Koivurova,

& Hasanat, 2012; Fenge, 2013; Fenge & Funston, 2015; Heininen, Exner-Pirot, &

Plouffe, 2016; Nord, 2016a; Rottem, 2016; Tennberg, 1999; UArctic, 2016) and its various aspects: scientific assessments of the council (Nilsson, 2007, 2012; Smieszek, Stepien, & Kankaanpää, 2016); the council’s contributions to international regulatory mechanisms (Brigham, 2014; Downie & Fenge, 2003; Khan, 2017; Prip, 2016; Selin, 2014, 2017; Selin & Selin, 2008; Shapovalova, 2016; Stone, 2015);

the role of indigenous peoples and the PPs in the AC (Dorough, 2019; Gamble

& Shadian, 2017; Koivurova & Heinämäki, 2006; Sellheim, 2019); and the role of the AC observers (Graczyk, 2011, 2012; Graczyk & Koivurova, 2014; Graczyk, Smieszek, & Koivurova, 2016; Knecht, 2017b, 2017a; Smieszek & Kankaanpää, 2015), including non-state actors (Burke & Bondaroff, 2019; Wehrmann, 2017).

Moreover, much attention has been paid to the various roles of the Arctic Council (Bailes, 2013; Nilsson, 2012; Spence, 2017; Wilson, 2016); the AC’s role in environmental and marine governance, including ecosystem-based management (Hoel, 2015; E.J. Molenaar, 2012; Stokke, 2011, 2013b; Young, 2016a); and to new circumpolar agreements negotiated under the auspices of the council (Kao et al., 2012; Rottem, 2015; Smieszek, 2017b). Finally, a question of leadership in the AC has received some treatment (Exner-Pirot, 2011; Nord, 2016b, 2019; Smieszek &

Kankaanpää, 2015), as have lessons flowing from the history of Arctic collaborative efforts (Koivurova, Kankaanpaa, & Stepien, 2015; Koivurova, 2012; Stenlund, 2002).

Among Arctic pundits and practitioners, there is a broad consensus that the Arctic Council’s accomplishments and contributions had far exceeded what anyone present at its beginnings in 1996 could have expected from a body void of many features of a traditional international organization: it was founded on the basis of a very general political declaration and without the support of a permanent secretariat or a stable budget (Kankaanpää & Young, 2012; Smieszek, 2019). Established as “a high-level forum”, throughout its existence, the council has managed to find for itself a niche among other international institutions and has gradually become the primary body for discussing matters pertaining to the Arctic. Thanks to its ingenious participatory

arrangement, where organizations of indigenous peoples sit as PPs alongside Arctic state officials, it has become an important mechanism for increasing the prominence of the concerns of the Arctic’s indigenous peoples (Koivurova & Heinämäki, 2006; Sellheim, 2019). A relatively clear spatial definition of the problems within the council and its acting within a predefined group of states have contributed to building an “Arctic identity” and have paved the way for recognition of the Arctic as a distinct region in the international political consciousness (Graczyk & Koivurova, 2015; Keskitalo, 2007; Keskitalo, 2004). Moreover, the AC’s work has resulted in

“probably the most significant accomplishment in Arctic environmental cooperation:

a substantial expansion of our knowledge about the Arctic environment, including natural and anthropogenic processes” (Graczyk & Koivurova, 2015: 312). It has also enabled the identification of major risks to the inhabitants of the region and the forms of responses for addressing those risks. The council has provided critical input into negotiations and the implementation of international conventions, such as the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (2001) and the Minamata Convention on Mercury (2013; Downie & Fenge, 2003), and, in recent years, has itself offered a negotiating space for several legally binding circumpolar agreements. It has catalyzed the formation of new regional entities such as the AEC, the Arctic Offshore Regulators Forum, and the Arctic Coast Guard Forum. Finally, in providing for regular meetings of Arctic scientists, civil servants, and high-level officials, the AC has favoured building continuity of circumpolar cooperation, fostered good relations, and ensured mutual confidence-building among Arctic states, ultimately promoting peace in the region, which previously had served as one of the main theatres of the Cold War (Graczyk & Koivurova, 2015; Article 2).

Nonetheless, despite these contributions, the council’s power to influence and

“make a difference” in Arctic relations has been frequently disparaged and, as illustrated in the Article 3 of this thesis, virtually from the outset, the AC has been subject to reform proposals, both from within and from outside its circles, aimed at improving is performance, enhancing its efficiency and effectiveness. Among the major points of criticism has been the soft-law nature of the AC as of a high-level intergovernmental forum, rather than a traditional international organization, and the resultant non-legally binding status of its outputs and recommendations. In words of Durfee and Johnstone (2019: 77), “[t]he Arctic Council is disproportionately influential for what is structurally no more than a roundtable for discussion with no lawmaking powers or compliance mechanisms”.

It is this disproportionate influence that triggered this inquiry and an in-depth case study of the Arctic Council in the first place. With the progress of my research, it became apparent, however, that the council’s performance is not its only aspect worthy of closer examination – the AC also exhibits other characteristics which set it apart from the previously considered universe of cases of international regimes. As previously asserted, much like the Arctic region itself, over the last 25 years, the Arctic

Council has served as an example of innovation in modes of governance (Arctic Governance Project, 2010) – an example that I found underresearched and of much relevance not only to the region, but also with possible lessons for other governance issue or spatial areas. The experience of unparalleled Arctic transformation and the prevailing uncertainty about the trajectory of future developments present us simultaneously with a challenge and an opportunity to focus our efforts on new ways of thinking about the governance mechanisms at our disposal, as well as the means of enhancing them (Nilsson & Koivurova, 2016; Young, 2012b). While inquiry along these lines might call into question some of the prevailing assumptions about the nature of international system and its main actors, it is equally important that such research both draws from and contributes to the existing body of knowledge on the institutional dimensions of global environmental change and global environmental governance. Accordingly, it was the quest to understand the Arctic Council through the lens of regime theory that resulted in the findings presented in brief in the next section and elaborated in detail in Articles 2–4 in this dissertation. These findings serve, in turn, as a basis for putting forward the concept of informal international regimes outlined towards the end of this synthesis.