The five surrounding Arctic countries, Russia, Canada, Norway, Denmark (via Greenland), and the United States, are limited to a 200-nautical-mile Exclusive Economic Zone around their coasts, and the area beyond that is administered by the International Seabed Authority.
However, upon ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, a country has a ten year period to make claims to extend its 200 mile zone.
Norway, Russia, Canada and Denmark have all launched projects to base claims that certain Arctic sectors should belong to their territories.
Norway wants to extend its seabed claim beyond in three areas of the northeastern Atlantic and the Arctic: the "Loop Hole" in the Barents Sea, the Western Nansen Basin in the Arctic Ocean, and the "Banana Hole" in the Norwegian Sea.
Russia is claiming a large extended continental shelf as far as the North Pole based on the Lomonosov Ridge within their Arctic sector. Moscow believes the eastern Lomonosov Ridge is an extension of the Siberian continental shelf. The Russian claim does not cross the Russia-US Arctic sector demarcation line, nor does it extend into the Arctic sector of any other Arctic coastal state.
The race to secure subsurface rights to the Arctic seabed heated up in 2007 when Russia sent two small submarines to plant a tiny national flag under the North Pole. Russia argued that an underwater ridge connected the country directly to the North Pole, a claim disputed by other Arctic nations.
In response to the Russian Arktika 2007 expedition, Canada's Foreign Affairs Minister said the following: "This is posturing. This is the true north strong and free, and they're fooling themselves if they think dropping a flag on the ocean floor is going to change anything. There is no question over Canadian sovereignty in the Arctic. We've made that very clear. We've established - a long time ago - that these are Canadian waters and this is Canadian property. You can't go around the world these days dropping a flag somewhere. This isn't the 14th or 15th century. "
