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The Legal Implications of the 2022 Canada-Denmark/Greenland Agreement on Hans Island (Tartupaluk) for the Inuit Peoples of Greenland and Nunavut | By Apostolos Tsiouvalas and Endalew Lijalem Enyew | January 24, 2023 | The Arctic Institute ~ Center for Circumpolar Security Studies

On June 14, 2022, Mélanie Joly, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Canada, Jeppe Kofod, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Denmark, along with Múte Bourup Egede, Prime Minister of Greenland, signed an Agreement in Ottawa resolving outstanding boundary issues between the sovereign states of Canada and the Kingdom of Denmark.1) The new Agreement determines the maritime boundary on the continental shelf within 200 nautical miles, including the Lincoln Sea, the continental shelf beyond 200 nautical miles in the Labrador Sea, and resolves a nearly 50-year-old dispute over the limestone Hans Island (also known as Tartupaluk) covering 1.3 km², situated in the Kennedy Channel portion of Nares Strait – about 18 km to the coasts of Ellesmere Island and Northwest Greenland respectively. Although uninhabited, Tartupaluk has historically been significant both to the Inughuit of Avanersuaq in Kalaallit Nunaat (Greenland) and to the Inuit of Nunavut, Canada. As such, the 2022 Agreement constitutes a historic milestone for the future of Inuit rights in the region. This blog post explores the legal implications of the Agreement on Tartupaluk for the traditional (fishing and hunting) rights of the Inuit Peoples of Greenland and Nunavut. The post first provides an overview of the background of the dispute and the content of the 2022 Agreement. It deals with the implication of the Agreement on the traditional rights of the Inuit people, followed by an examination of whether the recognition of Inuit rights under the Agreement is consistent with international law.

Background of the Dispute
Tartupaluk – which means ‘kidney’ in the local Inuktun language – was unknown to the rest of the world until the 19th century, when European and American explorers attempted to first map the Arctic high north. Several of these endeavors were guided by local Inuit hunters, such as Suersaq, a Northwest Greenlander who assisted on several missions. Suersaq, who was later nicknamed Hans Hendrik by expedition members, joined American Charles Francis Hall’s Polaris expedition which was the first ever mapped Tartupaluk in 1872.2) Expedition notes reveal that when the tiny limestone island was first mapped, it was named in honor of Hans Hendrik.3) Eight years after the initial mapping of the island, on 1 September 1880, Canada established sovereignty over all Britain’s former Arctic possessions including Ellesmere Island, based on the British Adjacent Territories Order. Fifty years after – following unsuccessful US claims in the northern portions of Greenland – with a 1933 decision of the Permanent Court of International Justice, Denmark also extended its sovereignty over the entirety of the island of Greenland and has maintained it as a semi-autonomous possession ever since.

The dispute over Hans Island began about 50 years ago when Canada and Denmark initiated negotiations to demarcate a 1,450-nm-long continental shelf boundary between Canada and Greenland without reaching an agreement concerning the title over Hans Island which lies midway between the two States. Thus, the 1973 Delimitation Agreement deliberately left without a determined boundary the area between the geodetic points 122 and 123 where Hans Island is located. The decades following the 1973 delimitation treaty triggered a rather political pseudo-confrontation regarding sovereignty over the island,4) with Canada and Denmark provoking each other by planting flags on the island, pursuing annual military visits, and exchanging bottles of whiskey and schnapps.5) Within these political debates, the Danish side often invoked the historical Inughuit presence on the island, mainly through the Danish Minister for Greenland, a post which was laid down in 1987.6) Similar arguments have been also echoed by the Canadian side, which often attributes Canada’s sovereignty in the Arctic to the historical Inuit use and occupancy of the entire Canadian archipelago.7)

The 2022 Agreement on Tartupaluk
To resolve the pending border questions, the two close NATO allies convened a joint task force in 2018, which eventually led to the 2022 Agreement. The Agreement ended the long-standing dispute over the legal status of the island and signaled the establishment of the first land border between Canada and Denmark/Greenland, which was celebrated with the last symbolic exchange of liquor during the negotiations. Based on the 2022 Agreement, Tartupaluk, which lies within Canada’s territorial sea and Greenland’s EEZ (given that the territorial sea in Greenland is so far limited to 3 nm) will thus be divided along a natural ridge with about 60% of the area being allocated to Greenland (Kingdom of Denmark) and the remainder of the area to Canada following the natural gully vertically cutting through the island. Drawing an equidistance line through the middle of shorelines from both sides is often considered the most convenient way for adjacent sovereign states to determine borders in order to achieve an equitable result, and this was the case for Tartupaluk.8) The Agreement further led to a delimitation of the remaining maritime border in the Lincoln and Labrador seas, while the parties agreed that a “practical and workable border-implementation regime” shall be established to manage visitors, tourism and trade across Canada and Denmark’s newest land border.9) The Agreement meant the creation of a total of 3,962 km length maritime boundary, which is so far the longest in the world consisting of 179 coordinates.

Implications of the Agreement on Tartupaluk for the Inuit people
The closest existing Inughuit hamlet Siorapaluk in Avanersuaq, North Greenland, lies 349 km (217-mile) south of Tartupaluk and the closest Inuit settlement in Canada, Ausuittuq (Grisefjord), lies 603 km on the southwest. The island was used by the Inughuit Greenlanders for centuries as a staging point when hunting polar bears and other game, while until recently the island’s cliffs served as observatory spots in identifying marine mammals on the surrounding sea-ice.10) While the direct implications of the Agreement may at first glance seem of a more pragmatic value for the Inughuit of Greenland, whose settlements are geographically located closer to the boundary, the Agreement has undoubtedly far-reaching importance for the Inuit of both sides.

Prior to the conclusion of the Agreement, the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) developed and implemented a broad consultation plan for talks with Inuit in Canada to discuss policy and border processing options that will ensure their continued historic and traditional access to Hans Island.11) Denmark also pursued consultations with the Inughuit of Northwest Greenland (Municipality of Avannaata). For a discussion of whether these consultations are in accordance with the commitments of both States under international law.

The Agreement’s provisions further ensured rights for the Inuit of both Nunavut and Greenland to freedom of movement throughout the island for “hunting, fishing and other related cultural, traditional, historic and future activities”.12) The premier of Nunavut praised the level of Inuit participation in the negotiations of the Agreement and stated that for Inuit, “lands, waters and ice form a singular homeland…used, crossed and inhabited freely before formal boundaries were created by political jurisdictions”.13) Although the establishment of a free movement regime is only applicable to a tiny uninhabited territory of 1.3 km², relatively far from existing Inuit settlements and does not extend to the water/sea-ice surrounding the island, it holds a significant symbolic value for the Inuit of both sides, since it demonstrates the integrity of Inuit traditional areas that extend beyond state-established sovereign borders. Largely dependent on traversing the sea-ice to hunt birds and marine mammals such as seals, walruses, polar bears and narwhals, the Inuit of the region – predominantly the adjacent Greenlandic Inughuit – were historically living as semi-nomadic peoples, moving between different settlements at certain seasons of the year for hunting purposes and to visit family members.14) In this context, traditional Inughuit hunting grounds extended on Tartupaluk and throughout the entire coast of northwest Greenland, and often included sites over the coast of Umimmaat Nunaat (Ellesmere Island) in Canada.15) Although Inughuit hunting mobility patterns have nowadays been decreased in response to political and socioecological changes in the region, the general understanding of seasonal migration is still pertinent to their livelihoods, as many ‘great hunters’ (Piniatorsuaq) still pursue long trips in search of prey.16)

Despite the Inughuit self-identify as a distinct group of the Kalaallit (Greenlanders), the Kingdom of Denmark accepts the existence of only one Indigenous people, the Inuit of Greenland. In the court case Hingitaq 53 v. Denmark the Greenlandic government formally declared that the Inughuit “do not constitute a tribal people or a particular Indigenous people within Greenland but are part of the Greenlandic people as a whole”. Institutionalizing the acknowledgment of the immemorial Inuit use of Tartupaluk may thus manifest a step further towards the ongoing struggle of the Inughuit for recognition as a distinct Indigenous group within Greenland largely connected to Avanersuaq’s particular socio-ecological system.

MORE AT:
https://www.thearcticinstitute.org/legal-implications-2022-canada-denmark-greenland-agreement-hans-island-tartupaluk-inuit-peoples-greenland-nunavut/

Research conducted for this piece was funded in part by The Geopolitics and Geoeconomics of Maritime Spatial Disputes in the Arctic (GEOSEAS) project of the Research Council of Norway no. 302176.

Apostolos Tsiouvalas is a Senior Fellow at The Arctic Institute. Endalew Lijalem Enyew is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Norwegian Center for the Law of the Sea, UiT The Arctic University of Norway.

References[−]

References
↑1 Government of Canada (2022) Press release: Canada and the Kingdom of Denmark, together with Greenland, reach historic agreement on long-standing boundary disputes, Global Affairs Canada, 14 June, https://www.canada.ca/en/global-affairs/news/2022/06/canada-and-the-kingdom-of-denmark-together-with-greenland-reach-historic-agreement-on-long-standing-boundary-disputes.html. Accessed on 26 December 2022
↑2 Nuttall M (2005) Encyclopedia of the Arctic. London: Taylor & Francis. pp. 853
↑3 Davis C H (1876) The Polaris Expedition: Narrative of the North Polar Expedition Encyclopedia of the Arctic. Washington D.C: U.S. Nav.
↑4 Elpige Mikhailova (2022) The Arctic This Week Take Five: Week of June 13, 2022. The Arctic Institute – Center for Circumpolar Security Studies, 17 June, https://www.thearcticinstitute.org/arctic-week-take-five-week-june-13-2022/. Accessed on 26 December 2022
↑5 Lackenbauer W P & Leander Nielsen R (2022) “Close, like-minded partners committed to democratic principles”: Settling the Hans Island/Tartupaluk Territorial Dispute. In Heininen L et al (eds.) Arctic Yearbook 2022. Akureyri: Arctic Portal. pp. 2
↑6 Byers M (2013) International Law in the Arctic. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 13
↑7 Government of Canada (1985) Canada: Statement Concerning Arctic Sovereignty. International Legal Materials Vol. 24(6): pp. 1725
↑8 Busch Veierud S (2022) The last bottle of the Whisky-War: A commentary on the boundary delimitation agreement on disputed areas between Canada and Denmark (Greenland). NCLOS Blog, 14 June, https://site.uit.no/nclos/2022/06/14/the-last-bottle-of-the-whisky-war-a-commentary-on-the-boundary-delimitation-agreement-on-disputed-areas-between-canada-and-denmark-greenland/. Accessed on 26 December 2022
↑9, ↑12, ↑13 Government of Canada (2022) Boundary Dispute: Backgrounder, Global Affairs Canada, 14 June, https://www.canada.ca/en/global-affairs/news/2022/06/boundary-dispute.html. Accessed on 26 December 2022
↑10 Freeman M (1976) Inuit Land Use and Occupancy Project: Report. Ottawa: Ministry of Supply and Services
↑11 Canada Border Services Agency (2022). Canada and the Kingdom of Denmark, together with Greenland, reach historic agreement on long-standing boundary disputes. Twitter, 14 June, https://twitter.com/CanadaFP/status/1536785910263697409/photo/1. Accessed on 26 December 2022
↑14 Hastrup K (ed.) (2009) The Question of Resilience. Social Responses to Climate Change. Copenhagen: Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters
↑15 Bertulli M et al. (2013) Fort Conger: A Site of Arctic History in the 21st Century. Arctic Vol. 66(3): pp. 312-328
↑16 Hastrup K. Arctic Hunters: Climate Variability and Social Flexibility. In Hastrup K (ed.) (2009) The Question of Resilience. Social Responses to Climate Change. Copenhagen: Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters
↑17 Report of the Pikialasorsuaq Commission (2017) People of the Ice Bridge: The future of the Pikialasorsuaq. Ottawa: ICC
↑18 Their main goal has been to argue for the allowance of cross-border mobility and traditional activities between the two sides of the polynya without custom clearance and passport control, given that many community members do not have access to relevant public services and administrative authorities in the far south of the respective states.
↑19 Dyspriani P (2011) Traditional Fishing Rights: Analysis of State Practice. New York: UN Division for Ocean Affairs and the Law of the Sea. pp 2; Reisman W M & Arsanjani M H (2007). Some Reflections on the Effect of Artisanal Fishing on Maritime Boundary Delimitation. Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. pp. 642
↑20 EL Enyew (2020), The Rights of Indigenous Peoples to Marine Space and Marine Resources under International Law. Tromsø: UiT The Arctic University of Norway. pp. 346); W M & Arsanjani M H (2007
↑21 Emphasis added. Within the broader meaning of ‘land’ under Article 13(2) of the ILO Convention 169, Articles 14(1) & 25 of UNDRIP should apply to the traditional fishing and hunting rights of sea nomadic indigenous communities within the maritime zones of neighboring States.
↑22 The South China Sea Arbitration, [794], emphasis added, for a detailed discussion see EL Enyew (2016), The South China Sea Award and the Treatment of Traditional fishing Rights

ADDITIONAL:
The Hans Island “Peace” Agreement between Canada, Denmark, and Greenland
| June 22, 2022 | Library of Congress
https://blogs.loc.gov/law/2022/06/the-hans-island-peace-agreement-between-canada-denmark-and-greenland/