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Canada's Sovereignty Over The Northwest Passage, Donat Pharand

Michigan Journal of International Law

In 1968, when this writer published "Innocent Passage in the Arctic," Canada had yet to assert its sovereignty over the Northwest Passage. It has since done so by establishing, in 1985, straight baselines around the whole of its Arctic Archipelago. In August of that year, the U. S. Coast Guard vessel Polar Sea made a transit of the Northwest Passage on its voyage from Thule, Greenland, to the Chukchi Sea. Having been notified of the impending transit, Canada informed the United States that it considered all the waters of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago as historic internal waters and that a …