The State Duma is studying the issue of possible denunciation of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea in the Arctic against the background of the actions of unfriendly countries. This was told to the Izvestia correspondent on the sidelines of the Arctic: Territory of Opportunities forum by deputy Nikolai Novichok, a member of the Committee for the Development of the Arctic and the Far East.
According to the deputy, he is working on this issue in cooperation with the State Duma Committee on Defense and plans to include it on the parliament's agenda.
During his speech at the panel session "Zone of special attention: ensuring integrated security in the Arctic", Nikolai Novichok drew attention to the intensification of attempts by unfriendly states to use the historical space of the Russian Arctic for their military and economic purposes without coordination with Russia.
According to the deputy, it is necessary to close the Russian sector of the Arctic today, without waiting for the denunciation of international legal acts, to which Russia became a party during the warming of relations with NATO countries.
"Given that after the adoption of amendments to the Constitution in 2020, we put national law above international law, no one prevents us from ignoring this requirement (the UN Convention on the 12-mile zone of Tervod. — Ed.) already now," Novichok told the Izvestia correspondent on the sidelines of the forum.
Russia ratified the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea in 1997, thereby abandoning the sectoral approach to defining the Arctic borders, which our state has adhered to since 1926. After the ratification of the Convention, only the 12-mile Arctic zone adjacent to the coastline of the mainland and islands is considered the territory of Russia, the rest of the Arctic waters are recognized as open for free navigation. This feature of the Convention is now being actively used by NATO states for hostile purposes, sending warships, submarines and aircraft to Russia's economic zone in the Arctic.