![]() ![]() While that infamous iceberg had significant impact on many legal rules relating to shipping safety, it somehow managed to escape drawing attention to its own status in international law. In the Arctic it could be clear who has ‘rights’ to exploit ice within certain areas, but for ice coming from Antarctica the question has an extra layer of complexity if rights are associated with sovereignty rather than the commons. To make the issue even more complicated, it also depends on which principles of international law are applied–such as those related to permanent sovereignty, those related to rivers and watersheds or those that come from the law of the sea. There are a number of ways to think about where to send the bill for the Titanic, but it depends on whether glacier ice is defined as mineral, or as water, such as permanent sovereignty or riparian rights. Industrial activity of any kind is prone to impact on local environments, and it would be advantageous to think about these impacts-and the impacts of resource conflict with a precautionary approach-and before fragile ecosystems are compromised. With ice framed as an important source of drinking water, issues of ownership–or at least of protection–are more pressing. Photograph of the RMS Titanic departing Southampton on Apby Francis Godolphin Osbourne Stuart These debates were largely focused on shelf ice, which is frozen sea, unlike the freshwater glacier bit of an iceberg that sank the Titanic. Explorers had just been racing to the North Pole and the scientists who lived on ice islands were soon to follow them. One reason is that around this time much of the discussion about the use and possession of icebergs was trying to determine if they could be treated as land and thus be subjected to sovereignty claims. The event revealed a weakness in the legal system and, as a result, in safety standards, but no one ever asked who owned the iceberg that sank the ship once thought to be unsinkable. It also resulted in the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS), which introduced changes to telecommunication practices (i.e., on board radios), safety parameters (i.e., lifeboats) and responding to vessels in distress. After this disaster, the International Ice Patrol was set up to monitor and report on the movements of icebergs. ![]() The sinking of the Titanic in 1912 is a landmark event for international maritime law. Have you ever wondered what country could be liable for the sinking of the Titanic if iceberg sovereignty was an established principle under international law? ![]()
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