Latvia

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Add another case to what might be called an epidemic of feverish disputes about fishing and other international rights issues in Svalbard, as Russia on Friday filed a formal protest with Norway over the detaining of a Russian trawler in the archipelago earlier month because it was operating within Norway’s fishery protection zone.

The protest follows three other detentions of Russian trawlers in recent years, plus a multitude of separate protests and other actions Russia has taken regarding what it calls Norway’s illegal interpretation of the Svalbard.

Also this week, a Latvian ship company was fined two million kroner in a by a Norwegian court for illegally catching 80 tons of snow crab in Svalbard, four years after the detaining of the vessel touched off a fierce legal battle with the European Union about access rights under the treaty. The battle took on global significance because the laws governing the seabed species are considered the same governing far more lucrative resources in the area such as oil.

About Post Author

Mark Sabbatini

I'm a professional transient living on a tiny Norwegian island next door to the North Pole, where once a week (or thereabouts) I pollute our extreme and pristine environment with paper fishwrappers decorated with seemingly random letters that would cause a thousand monkeys with a thousand typewriters to die of humiliation. Such is the wisdom one acquires after more than 25 years in the world's second-least-respected occupation, much of it roaming the seven continents in search of jazz, unrecognizable street food and escorts I f****d with by insisting they give me the platonic tours of their cities promised in their ads. But it turns out this tiny group of islands known as Svalbard is my True Love and, generous contributions from you willing, I'll keep littering until they dig my body out when my climate-change-deformed apartment collapses or they exile my penniless ass because I'm not even worthy of washing your dirty dishes.

marksabbatini@yahoo.com

http://icepeople.net

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Read Time:2 Minute, 51 Second

A kilogram of crabs costs about twice as much as a kilogram of oil. But it’s the latter that’s perceived as the real treasure in a rapidly escalating legal battle between Norway and the European Union that may redefine the Svalbard Treaty and affect rights to drilling and other activity in the region for decades to come.