Page "North Pole" Paragraph 64

Upon ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, a country has a ten year period to make claims to an extended continental shelf beyond its 200 mile exclusive economic zone.

If accepted, such a claim gives the claimant state rights to what may be on or beneath the sea bottom within the claimed zone.

Norway ( ratified the convention in 1996 ), Russia ( ratified in 1997 ), Canada ( ratified in 2003 ) and Denmark ( ratified in 2004 ) have all launched projects to base claims that certain areas of Arctic continental shelves should be subject to their sole sovereign exploitation.