Willy Østreng – författare

The basic objective of this book is to place the Northern Sea Route, as the largest scale economic endeavour of the North, into the broader picture of contemporary Arctic politics. The book's overall focus is on the issue-specific needs, properties and interactional patterns that currently exist between the two driving forces underlying regional politics: the urge to achieve an adequate level of environmental protection in order to sustain an eco-system of unique fragility, and the need to utilise regional environmental features for the sake of preserving national security. The book is thus a study of national security and international environmental cooperation, both alone and in a variety of conceptual combinations, including environmental security, sustainable security, extended security and cooperative security.

The Northern Sea Route (NSR) through Russia's ice-infested Arctic waters can potentially halve sailing distances between Europe and Northeast Asia. It also passes by some of the world's largest oil and gas reserves. As we enter the 21st century, technological, political and even climatic developments are again making the NSR an interesting possibility. The International Northern Sea Route Programme (INSROP) has enlisted the expertise of 450 researchers from 14 countries for six years to answer the questions: Is international commercial shipping on the NSR feasible - economically, technically and environmentally? And if so, under what conditions? The problem is obviously complex and so the programme adopted a multi-disciplinary approach, with 104 sub-projects mapping and investigating relevant ship technology, costs and benefits in relation to other transport routes, potential impacts on the environment and local indigenous peoples, cargo potential, political and administrative obstacles, availability of insurance, security aspects, jurisdiction and environmental law, and other aspects. The results and conclusions of the 104 studies have been integrated and are presented here.This reference work should be of interest to commercial and political decision makers concerned with the development of NSR shipping, as well as other stakeholders and interested experts.

The most comprehensive and richest study undertaken so far of the factors and conditions that will determine the scope and range of shipping and shipping activities in Arctic waters now and in the future. Furthermore, it is the first study comparing the three Arctic transportation corridors, covering a variety of interacting and interdependent factors such as: - geopolitics, military affairs, global warming, sea ice melting, international economic trends, resources, competing modes of transportation, environmental challenges, logistics, ocean law and regulations, corporate governance, jurisdictional matters and rights of indigenous peoples, arctic cruise tourism and marine insurance.

The Northern Sea Route (NSR) through Russia's ice-infested Arctic waters can potentially halve sailing distances between Europe and Northeast Asia. It also passes by some of the world's largest oil and gas reserves. As we enter the 21st century, technological, political and even climatic developments are again making the NSR an interesting possibility. Is international, commercial shipping on NSR feasible - economically, technologically and environmentally? This has been the topic of six years of research within the International Northern Sea Route Programme (INSROP), enlisting the expertise of 450 researchers from 14 countries. Acknowledging the complexity of the problem, the research programme used a uniquely multi-disciplinary approach, with 104 sub-projects mapping and investigating relevant ship technology, the costs and benefits versus other transport routes, potential impacts on the environment and local indigenous peoples, the cargo potential, political and administrative obstacles, the availability of insurance, aspects of security, jurisdiction and environmental law, as well as other aspects.The results and conclusions of the 104 studies have been integrated and is presented in this book - the first book ever to address the Northern Sea Route in such a comprehensive manner.It is truly a reference work, which should be on the desk of all commercial and political decision-makers concerned with the commercial potential and future development of Northern Sea Route shipping - as well as other stakeholders and interested experts.

The basic objective of this report is to place the debate about the future of the Northern Sea Route into the larger picture of Arctic politics and the emerging agenda of the Arctic as a developing region in international society. National security and international environmental cooperation, are the objects of study employed, both separately and in various conceptual combinations, to realize this purpose. To help me in this, I was privileged to draw on the profound expertise of my highly esteemed co-authors, Professor Franklyn Griffiths at the University of Toronto and Senior Researchers at IMEMO in Moscow: Raphael Vartanov, Alexei Roginko and Alexander Kolossov. To their cooperative spirit, friendship and solid contributions to this report, ( am deeply indebted. The report is the result of multiple contributions, both in terms of substance and funding, extending far beyond the inputs of the team of authors. The professional input and thorough work 'behind the scene' done by Liv Astrid Sverdrup, Researcher at FNI at an early stage of the project, has been invaluable. Senior Consultant Kjell Moe at the Norwegian Polar Institute also provided valuable comments and improvements to the biological parts of the Introductory chapter, whilst Senior Consultant Ann Skarstad at FNI, worked wonders with the language for those of us not having English as our mother tongue. Claes Lykke Ragner, Deputy head of the (NSROP secretariat, and Dr.